


Powerless

by BunnyHoodlum



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst and Feels, Bullying, Coming of Age, Cultural Differences, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, F/M, Family Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internet, Male Friendship, Orphans, Parallel Universes, Police, Raised Apart, Slow Burn, Yakuza
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-02-07 14:06:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 75,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12842760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyHoodlum/pseuds/BunnyHoodlum
Summary: [Urban/Modern Parallel AU] [NaruHina.]Why is it believed that calling a child 'dog shit' will shape them into a human being? Naruto knows that even dog shit is appealing to flies. As an orphan, Naruto fights to validate his existence, even if it means the only ones who want him around are the scum of the earth.





	1. Prologue, Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Formerly titled 'Blue Roses'.

The world had been torn asunder and it calmed him.

He took advantage of his disfigurement to blend into the raging chaos that was the Emergency Room. The stench of char and singed flesh, the predictable hysterics of frightened family members as their child or spouse is carted away from them on a stretcher, and the lively display of open burn wounds, pink and weeping in the center and rimmed with black crusts like freshly licked candy dropped in the dirt, all of this the climax to his magnificent crescendo.

The squirming, screaming blood sack bundled in his arms had gone largely unnoticed by the overburdened staff. Until she showed up, pigeon-breasted beneath her teal scrubs and green haori, and blonde twintails bouncing behind her with every harried step. Glistening beneath the fluorescence and the weight of her mission this night and the many more to come, she approached him and her lips parted to speak.

He intercepted her, keeping his head down. “Here.” He pressed the little stinkshit into her arms, turned and sped the way he had entered.

She shouted after him, but she need not worry.

He would be back for him someday.

* * *

 

Three years had passed since that night.

The government had declared it an act of terrorism, orchestrated by unknown persons. Nine districts had been hit, each perfectly spaced apart and had been oriented around the arboretum that stood at the heart of the metropolis.

Eighteen hundred dead, fifty-two hundred injured, and about an eighth of those survived did not come out of it the same. The government had estimated about seven thousand orphans had been produced out of this tragedy. Only three thousand had been moved into government housing, the other four thousand gobbled up by orphanages and human traffickers.

One such failing complex had been converted to house those displaced by the incident. This stacked and somewhat suffocating building was nine storeys tall, with three hundred and seventeen apartments, arranged in a ‘U’ around an overgrown, weed-ridden lawn and built like a parking garage. The cement face was pock-marked and rust-stained, the only bits of joy and color to be seen were the crayon drawings scraped into the grey, and the two-foot tall mural that ran from end to end of the third floor like a comic strip.

At this complex, a blonde, blue-eyed little boy made paces across the rooftop playground, laughing as he found many things to climb up on and over. Many of the other orphans were far older than him and carried no interest in wasting their time on a rambunctious baby who didn’t even have the attention span for one round of Hide and Seek.

His birth a mystery to most, a famous man who he would never meet had walked into the NICU the day following the attacks, with grief on face and had given him the name: Naruto.

* * *

 

At five years old, Naruto was a skilled climber, often perching himself up in trees like a cat.

He hugged the bark at the very top of a tree with his skinny legs as he leaned over towards the nearby orphanage, shielding a grimy hand against his brows. It was an overcast day, yet this gesture felt like it increased his vision and his concentration.

What stood in his way from getting to play with those other kids was a steel grate fence that curved inwards at the top.

 _Doesn’t seem so bad from up here._ He pictured himself hopping from the tree onto that curve of metal and jumping down into the playpen on the other side. All the kids back home had gone off to school, some of them had even become teenagers and were busier and moodier than he cared for.

Scar Face and his best friend Mizuki in particular were an annoyance to him, always making passing comments that meant more than how they sounded face value. He wasn’t a crybaby like they were, but those two sure hated hearing that from him.

“Hey, look! It’s a monkey!”

Naruto was well acquainted with the hostility of other children. He grit his nails into the bark and glared at the three boys below.

“No, I’m Naruto!”

The boys clutched their stomachs and bowled over, derisive laughter shaking their shoulders.

“He thinks he’s Naruto!!”

“I **AM** NARUTO!” He pounded his foot onto the dead branches a level below him. They snapped and came away with a crackle, twigs and dirt and possibly ants or mites showered upon the boys’ heads.

“Why you!” The tallest of the three bent down and gripped a rock the size of a die and drew his arm back. He launched it. The rock arced through the air and struck the tree just an inch shy of Naruto’s ankle.

The other two boys bent over and picked up rocks of their own. Naruto flinched, his eyes shut, as if that would prevent the rocks from making their mark. A stone struck his calf with a sting. Another punched into his lower back. He expected more, but then the assault had lulled.

He peeked down and excitement rose from his lungs at the sight of the tallest boy being pushed to the ground by a familiar head of bunned black hair. The other two boys were stunned, unsure what to do. That hesitation lead to two measured strikes to the face. They cried clutching their noses, then ran off down the sidewalk. The tallest boy pushed himself to his feet and sprinted after them.

Naruto waved his arms. “Haku!!” He clambered down, then paused. “Ahhh, I broke most of the branches!”

“Come down as far as you can. I’ll catch you.” Haku spread his arms out, a serene smile on the six year old’s face.

Encouraged, Naruto inched down to the branch closest to the ground. Sitting atop it, he wrapped his little fingers around it tight and lowered himself slowly until he was dangling, much like a monkey.

Haku approached him, beckoned with his hands and Naruto closed his eyes. He let go.

Being caught was like rug burn, and it wrapped around his chest, his shirt bunched up at his armpits. He giggled sheepishly and Haku placed him on his feet.

He smoothed down his shirt and smiled up at his friend. A smudge of blue stained his friend’s cheekbone, but it did not resemble any marker he had ever seen. Haku reached up and touched it. His fingertips came away clean and the smudge remained unchanged.

His voice was soft, melancholic. “I’m not sure today is a good day to play.”

Disappointment settled in like a plate of fresh vegetables, then a pair of pinched black eyes caught his attention from inside the front door. A woman who looked like a bulldog in a dress stood with her hands on her hips, glowering from the threshold as if her eyes could set things on fire.

Disappointment grew into displeasure as Naruto stuffed his hands into the pockets of his shorts and he retreated from the orphanage, in no particular direction.

“I’m sorry! Maybe next time!”

* * *

 

 

Naruto scuffed the soles of his shoes along the dusty concrete of the breezeway, having little desire to hole up in his apartment alone. He didn’t process the pair of footsteps leisurely approaching, nor their idle conversation. The pressed black pants of a junior high uniform came into his view, then the teen brushed right past him. Naruto faltered, yet his brain told him to keep moving, don’t worry about it, just keep moving. His stubby fingers curled at his sides. His spine tightened up and his face burned with anxiety.

“You get into trouble again, Naruto?”

Naruto lurched to a stop.

That voice belonged to Scar Face. His real name was Umino Iruka. He’s been fifteen for a week. Always talks real nice, acts like he’s super responsible. Most tenants here were fond of him. But Scar Face couldn’t seem to treat him as anything more than a nuisance. Plus he never smiled at him.

Naruto glanced at his leg. A bright red trail as thin as string ran down the outside of his right calf and disappeared inside his sandal.

He shrugged petulantly. “Dunno.”

Scar Face blew a deflated sigh. “You ‘don’t know’?”

An arrogant chortle from Mizuki ran a chill down his little back. That guy was all venom and acid, nothing else. “There should be a consequence for liars. What do you think, Naruto?”

Fear swooped into his chest and flew off with his courage. The rapid patter of sneakers against the concrete quickly gaining behind him grabbed his ankles and pulled him down into a pit of sticky panic. Naruto looked over his shoulders for a second and that was all he needed. Naruto pushed himself to run, run faster. His lungs fluttered and flattened with every rush of breath.

“GO AWAY! GO AWAY!” He shrieked, his eyes prickling.

“You were at the orphanage again, weren’t you?!”

The collar of Naruto’s shirt scraped along his throat, his legs flew forward as he was yanked like a dog. He curled his fingers around his shirt collar, grunting as he struggled to prevent the cotton from digging hot into his skin. “My… friend… lives… there! Leggo!” He kicked his heels at the concrete, but Mizuki was too big, too strong.

“You still tryna get adopted, huh, shrimp?”

“I will get adopted! I will!”

Slow and deliberate footsteps approached. They stopped next to him. Naruto squinted through the pain. Scar Face’s impassive gaze was as if he were looking at nothing more than a rat to be rid of. “No, you won’t.”

Mizuki snickered and traded Naruto’s collar for his wrists. He lifted him off the ground. Naruto jerked and twisted like snake. “Yeah, the truth is most people think they got enough problems; they can’t be bothered to be adopting. They think ‘Oh, surely someone else will do it’. But those people don’t exist either. Most kids just rot there until they age out, then they’re out on the streets.”

“Shut up! You always say mean things just to scare me!”

“Why do you think you even deserve to be adopted?” Iruka’s voice was colder and harder than permafrost. “I actually had parents. So why do you think you deserve something I can no longer have? The government is taking care of you and yet you’re still ungrateful. Does that seem right to you?”

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut and threw his head back. “I DUNNO!” He didn’t understand what Scar Face meant by ungrateful, or what was right or wrong, or how he was supposed to feel about the government taking care of him. The government didn’t come over to play with him or pick him up. It didn’t tuck him to bed or hold him through the night when he could hear his neighbors violently arguing on the other side of his bedroom wall or when a series of loud pops tossed him out of his dreams and under his sheets. It never soothed him when his mind was full of dark clouds, thunderous and heavy, and all he wanted to do was scream and hit and break things. Anything. Everything. Even if it was something he loved every now and then. Hating it enough in that singular moment meant it had to be destroyed, that it deserved it.

Naruto kicked frantically as Mizuki walked over to the edge of the breezeway. Naruto screamed as the ground disappeared beneath his feet. Mizuki was dangling him over the edge, three stories high above the shaggy lawn.

“NONONONONONO!! I DON’T WANNA BE THE BUG ON THE WINDSHIELD! I DON’T WANNA BE THE BUG ON THE WINDSHIELD!!”

“Say you’re a crybaby, you ugly snot!”

“NONONO! HELPSOMEONEHELPME!!”

Mizuki flapped his little body over the side as if he were flicking debris off a dishcloth. “Say it, you little punk!”

What was this feeling? He felt like he was shrinking, but he knew he wasn’t, not from what he could see. Small, so small, like an ant. Like that red rubber ball down below, tucked in the weeds. He was dirt. Somehow, he had become the dirt.

“I… I,I’m a crybaby…”

A satisfied grunt from Mizuki and he reeled him back onto the breezeway. He barely let his sandals touch the ground before he released his aching wrists. Naruto crumpled onto his knees, the shock of death rendering him limp and lightheaded.

Mizuki retreated and caught up with Iruka, their exchange muted but audible.

“You tease him too much, you know. If you keep feeding him attention like that, he’ll just want more.” Iruka’s voice.

“Whatever, nerd.” Mizuki’s voice.

“We really need to study.”

“Nah, _you_ need to study. I’m way fucking smarter than you. I’ve got like thirty IQ points on you.”

* * *

 

Several big kids were gathered inside what was formerly a gym but had been converted into a common room, complete with three recycled sofas -- one brown, one a dirty orange that sometimes looked brown and a mossy green one with brass buttons along the front of the arm rests. There was also an old coffee table, composite wood and dented with its plastic veneer chipped away at the corners. Plus a microwave, a refrigerator, and most importantly a television. It was clunky, and cube-like with the bunny ear antennas, but it worked.

Iruka and Mizuki were here too, as well as two middle aged adults, a man and a woman, and one cranky old man who seemed either too poor or too stingy to get his own television.

For as long as the old man was here, he was in control of the remote, and predictably everyone was stuck ‘watching’ the news.

Things that were new rarely seemed good or happy. The man was old and rarely seemed happy, but Naruto assumed that he was good. Bread that was old wasn’t good at all and it definitely didn’t make him happy. If new things were bad and old things were kind of bad, then what was actually good? He liked frogs. The dry ones with warts looked like they were really old, but he liked them too. New ramen from Ichiraku was always better than old ramen, and the cup noodles were new forever. He figured things like that had to be considered good, in fact, they were very good.

“Oh my, what’s this?” The old man muttered. It was a picture of a girl. A little girl, just like him. Her hair was short and straight and dark like a blackberry. Her skin was white like a plate. Her lips were fat and round and red like a half-eaten cherry. Her eyes were big, ethereal and pale, no pupils; it was like she had taken the moon for herself, as if she had no longer wanted normal, boring eyes.

**“First Daughter of the Hyuuga Syndicate, Hyuuga Hinata, was kidnapped early this morning at approximately 7:32 AM. CCTV footage shows a man who was not the chauffeur climb into the parked limousine and drive off with the four year old strapped in the backseat. Her mother is seen moments later running after the car. Police warn for everyone within the downtown districts to be extra cautious of their surroundings, especially at night, as this incident may lead to gang-style warfare between the families--”**

The old man grunted derisively as he muted the sound. The closed captions popped up shortly after. Too bad Naruto didn’t know how to read yet.

“Maybe this was a rescue.” The old man proposed, earning strange looks from the other two adults. “To raise a child in such a dangerous environment is a negligence of duty in of itself. We have no need of Yakuza breeding more Yakuza.”

Naruto, who had been hovering a few feet behind the sofas (and Iruka and Mizuki, for that matter), bit back his fear and shared the question that had grown too large for the confines of his brain.

“What do you mean ‘no need’?”

Fifteen sets of eyes rolled away from the television, and he flinched, feeling skewered by their bland gazes.

Mizuki broke the tension that was strangling the common room.

“He means she’s a good for nothing, at least that is, if she were to grow up to be a nemesis to society. People like that we wanna throw away.” He was smirking as he explained all this and ended with the casual roll of his shoulder.

Those two words snapped his mind in half, and like a cracked egg what came out was the blackest of clouds and the harshest of thunder in his scream. “YOU CAN’T THROW PEOPLE AWAY!”

Mizuki’s smirk dropped. He gripped the back of the sofa and vaulted over, his indoor shoes slapping against the dingy tiles.

The fear swooped in again and Naruto spun round on his heel. He ran at the door and pushed both palms against it. It swung open with a crack and he blasted across the lawn, as if dogs were nipping at his heels.

Across the street was an empty lot, just as bedraggled and overgrown as the lawn he left behind.

Here in this lot was an old car -- abandoned, rusted -- simply a skeleton of someone else’s memories. It sat without tires on four weather-worn cinderblocks. Its leather seats were soft and musty, with a gentle spider-webbing of cracks along its surface. The locks still worked and the key had been long gone. The only way in was to climb was through a window, one of which he had broken -- against fear of rain -- seven months earlier using six big rocks in order to claim this as his quick access hiding place.

He gripped the passenger side door and pulled himself up. He dropped inside. He collapsed on his side and hugged his legs to his chest. He tucked his chin to his chest and pressed his eyes to his knees.

He didn’t want to think anymore. It seemed like his mind only got blacker and blacker, his heart and stomach sicker.

Could Mizuki be thrown away? He entertained. How he wished Mizuki would be the one to go away.

* * *

 

Just outside the orphanage sat a sleek black car. It was built like a tank, with polished rims and tires cleaned to a wet shine. A solemn beast of a man leaned against the driver’s side, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore black joggers and an untucked dress shirt, also black, as well as sandals, which made him look rather funny despite his grim countenance. His mouth and nose were obscured by a cloth mask and a pair of sunglasses sat atop his head.

The bulldog-ish caretaker woman was pulling Haku out of the orphanage and Naruto filled his lungs with air.

“HAKU!! HAKU!! WAIT!!”

Haku turned and smiled at him. The caretaker crossed her arms, releasing a snobby sigh. Naruto bent forward and cupped his knees, heaving oxygen into his body. Picking his head up, his blue eyes glimmered with excitement, joy and unshed tears before he launched himself at his best friend and dragged him into the biggest of hugs he could offer. He ignored the troubling fact that Haku’s eye was blue and purple again, that his lip was split too. Maybe someday he could finally look one hundred percent himself, no bruises, no blood.

“I hope we can see each other again.” He murmured into his shoulder.

Haku rested a hand against the back of Naruto’s head and gently patted the boy’s fears. “If you can wait for me, we’ll definitely see each other again.”

A cheeky grin stretched into Naruto's cheeks, his voice dropping to a low whisper in his ear. “So where are you going exactly?”

Haku’s smile was like that of a mannequin; unreadable. He merely said this: “I’m going to be part of a family.”

* * *

 

Naruto wanted that too. He wanted it more than anything. What exactly was wrong with Yakuza if they called themselves ‘family’? A bond that was thicker than blood, he couldn’t wish for anything more.

The early summer sun had set about an hour ago beneath the cover of hot rain. It was Naruto’s favorite type of weather because all the frogs came out as if the parade of fat rain drops had pounded them out of the wet ground.

Naruto was sticky with mud and the humid air. The soggy air smelled of sodden wood and crisp grass.

He sat on the first step of the left stairwell overlooking the bedraggled lawn, gently gripping a slick, chubby frog in his right hand, whilst he stroked the center of its head with his stubby forefinger and cooed at it affectionately.

A groan in the distance drew Naruto’s attention away from his shiny little friend. The source of that groan was a white-haired teen, staggering like a drunk beneath the dingy lamplight. Mizuki. Of course it had to be him.

Half parts assuming and hoping that Mizuki would wander the opposite direction or ignore him completely, Naruto went back to adoring the chubby boy in his little hand.

“‘Ey, you shit. Y’know what time it ish?!” Mizuki shouted from a few feet away. Naruto scowled from beneath his furrowed brows, his heart chanting for his sudden and immediate disappearance. “I said ish late you damn eyesore!”

Naruto puffed his cheeks and stood from the steps. He began to walk away, holding his friend close to his chest.

“Whasha got there huh?!” His sneakers squeaked and scuffled clumsily on the concrete. He was getting closer. What was his problem? Did Mizuki really have to pick on him every time he saw him?

“Leave me alone!” Naruto protested, picking up his pace into a careful jog. Mizuki’s drunken footsteps evolved into thunderous slaps along the puddle-ridden concrete and that thunder had been injected straight into Naruto’s chest.

Mizuki slipped and knocked Naruto flat on his face. The blonde yelped then cried with dismay as his froggy friend began to hop away. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the scrapes on his elbows and knees, his eyes trained on the shiny form hopping away.

“Wait! I’ll get it, I’ll get it!” Mizuki groaned as he rose to his feet and stumbled past the dirt-stained boy. Naruto paused, wondering if Mizuki actually had a nice side sometimes.

He thought that, but Mizuki stomped on his hopes just as he lifted his leg and stomped the frog dead beneath his sneaker.

Naruto sank to his knees, his wide blue eyes trembling in disbelief as the oily gnashing of tender guts on concrete resounded in his head.

Mizuki murdered his Gama-chan.

* * *

 

For once, Naruto was interested in the news. He understood now why people pulse-checked the world’s welfare with the stuff: All they wanted was some good news. And ever since that afternoon, Naruto came into the common room every day, waiting and hoping for it too.

It’s been three weeks. Weren’t they ever going to find her? Some days they didn’t talk about her at all. Days like that took something away from him, like someone was taking a chisel to his heart and were steadily chipping away at his hope.

The old man was here in his usual spot on the brown sofa as it was positioned closest to the screen. A lady was here reading a magazine by the fridge. Iruka and Mizuki sat on the green sofa, playing handheld video games on their weekend.

The red ball thunked off the wall. It hit the floor and rolled to Naruto’s feet. He bent over and picked it up, repeating his idle, mind-numbing play. He didn’t know what was possessing him like this, neither of the adults here seemed to pay him no mind, but Mizuki, out of the corner of his eye, was just about reaching the limits of his patience.

“You better stop, you fucking brat.”

The ball rolled to his feet and he picked it up again. Naruto turned his face to Mizuki, boldly staring into his bitter eyes. Naruto pushed the ball, letting it thunk off the wall for the umpteenth time.

His eye twitched, his nostrils flared. “One more time, I dare ya.”

What the hell was possessing him today? Naruto stooped down and gathered the ball. He turned his body towards Mizuki and pushed the red ball, a jolt of satisfaction jammed through his chest as the ball popped off the teen’s face.

“Naruto!” Iruka scolded.

“You little shit!” Mizuki clutched the little red ball in one hand and flung it forward. It smacked off of Naruto’s right shoulder as he moved to duck away. Naruto’s eyes bulged as a vice clamped across his throat. He dug his nails into Mizuki’s forearm, growling, writhing and kicking for him to stop.

“Mizuki-kun, for God’s sakes!” shouted the old man.

“Shut it, you decrepit fool!”

The woman swatted Mizuki over the head with her rolled up magazine. “Mizuki, stop or I’ll call the police!”

“What, I’m just playing with him!”

“Shouldn’t you be disciplining him instead? Clearly he needs more of that.” Iruka commented blandly as he smashed at the buttons of his gaming device.

“Yeah, Jou-chan! I’m playing with and disciplining him! Both what he wants and _what he needs_.” Mizuki tightened his grip on the boy’s neck, finding satisfaction in his desperate wheezing.

“Don’t play that bullshit with me, boy! Let him go!”

Mizuki loosened his chokehold and Naruto fell to his hands and knees. Gingerly he cupped his neck, his body wracked with wet, hoarse coughs that scraped at his voice. Mizuki bent down on one knee and whispered venom beneath his breath. “You better get out of my face. Hear me, crybaby?”

Despite shaking his head, Naruto obeyed him and pushed himself into a wobbly jog out of the common room.

Climbing the stairs to the third floor, and jogging towards the tenth apartment from the left, he slipped inside his unwelcoming home. He turned the lock and dragged over the chair he kept nearby, then shoved it under the door knob.

His little fists shook at his sides. He was tired of being a worm and Mizuki the crow. Tired of Scar Face’s self-centered indifference. Tired of having three hundred useless neighbors that barely knew he existed.

It was bubbling up again. The bitterness that sought retribution, like a boiling, black miasma.

And he was fresh out of things to break.

He opened his mouth and released the storm brewing inside his heart. “I HATE YOU!! I HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU!!”

* * *

 

Then one month later, on a drizzling day in September, Heaven had finally sent him an angel.

She was a gorgeous and mysterious woman, with hair the color of rain-drenched hydrangeas, moody grey eyes like a soft, overcast morning and a pensive frown that seemed locked to contain her thoughts. A piercing adorned her bottom lip. It looked like a silver ball. She strode through his front door, flanked by two strange men in pressed suits, dressed in a black turtleneck and a long, black skirt that swept at her ankles and split up to her thigh.

When her moody eyes drifted on his nervous form, her gaze softened, as if the clouds parted enough to allow a single beam of sunlight to caress the earth.

She bent down onto both knees and rested her hands atop her thighs. The men stood at the door.

“Hello there. You must be Naruto.”

Sitting in a corner, bruised chin tucked against scraped knees, her unexpected presence rendered him mute and he simply nodded at her.

“My name is Konan. You see, my adoptive father passed away recently, and it would seem that he had included you in his will.”

His face scrunched up, his swollen bottom lip pursed in confusion. “What does that mean?”

She smiled at him and he really wondered if she was an angel. “It means I’ve come to take you away from here.”

For the first time he let those hot tears fall down his cheeks and drip off his jaw. What had been a toothy vice locked around his heart, sinking its maw deeper and deeper day by day, had finally been loosened and came away, clattered to the floor to trouble him no longer.

* * *

 

Naruto blushed as the concrete rolled beneath his sandals as he held hands with Konan through the crumbling complex. He stole a peek at the woman who he was allowed to call ‘Onee-san’, and doing so brought Scar Face and Mizuki into his line of sight.

The twin looks of naked jealously and utter bafflement on their faces filled him with a range of satisfaction that he hadn’t experienced before. He felt warm and complete from head to toe.

Exiting past, Naruto turned his chin into his shoulder and stuck his tongue out at them.

He didn’t say it. He didn’t have to.

_Told ya so._

* * *

 

The car ride took two hours, a hundred minutes on the freeway and twenty minutes on surface streets. The moment the apartment complex pulled into view, he couldn’t stop bouncing and fidgeting in his seat. When Konan giggled, he remembered himself and tried to reel in his excitement.

Compared to that ramshackle complex, this place was a thousand percent nicer. Sturdy, lush green hedges reached up to the rain, barring onlookers from catching a glimpse inside, they added that cozy layer of privacy to the existing brick pillars and the black grate fence that ran along the sidewalk.

Beyond the entryway was a parking lot half-filled with various sedans. He did not think about the fact that they did not park in here. He turned his sparkling eyes up to her gentle ones.

“Which one is it?!” He bounced in the shallow puddles in the asphalt.

“That one.” She pointed at a lone staircase off to the left. It lead straight to the apartment door.

Once inside, he hesitated and wrinkled the hem of his shirt. He didn’t want to dirty this spotless and rather empty home.

He took in the living room and its white walls and bamboo flooring. Against the wall to the right were two nightstands flanking a single sofa, camel brown and softly textured. In front of it was something he had always desired: a kotatsu. Against the opposite wall was a flat screen television, which sat atop a dark brown wooden console.

Directly ahead he could see a granite-countered island and beyond that a polished chrome sink.

“It’s okay. Take a look around.” Konan encouraged softly. He pushed his heel into his ankle and scraped his sandal off his foot and did the same for the other. From there he was darting headlong into what he was sure was the kitchen.

He opened the fridge and saw that it was empty, but he didn’t care. He had his own fridge! Plus it had the thingy where ice and water come out! He spun around and clambered up the barstools surrounding the island, then pushed himself onto the smooth and cold stone. He lowered himself in a satisfied heap and smiled as the surface soothed his cheek.

Konan sauntered in, giggling at his reactions of simple joy. She understood him completely, her own childhood never too far from her mind.

“Would you like to see your bedroom?”

Naruto jackknifed from the granite. “Yes!”

 

The bedroom was as empty as the living room and the kitchen. Against the left wall, perfectly center-adjusted was a twin sized bed with a plain navy blue comforter and a single white pillow. Directly across the bed was a small yellow dresser, and left of the dresser was the closet.

He turned around and peered out the bedroom door. He was at the end of the hallway, along with the laundry machines and the bathroom.

“... Where’s your bedroom?”

A frown set into her face as she shook her head.

“I’m sorry, but this is your home, Naruto. I live another hour from here.”

“Oh.” Of course, he thought with learned resignation.

“But… I can help you settle in for a few days. Would that be okay?”

“Please. I’d really like that, ‘Nee-san.”

Smiling, Konan offered her hand. He grabbed it and lead them out of the bedroom.

* * *

 

Children’s anime on the television and a piping hot pizza on the kotatsu, Naruto sat on the sofa, clean from a bath and bandaged up by Konan. He hummed and kicked his feet as he chomped on the second best thing he had eaten in a long, long time. Ichiraku always came first. Always.

Konan had more to tell him.

“So, it would seem that you inherited a last name as well, Naruto-chan.”

He spun his head so quick, she thought his neck would snap, and she giggled at the cheese grease and mayo jaga dotting his cheeks.

“What is it, what is it?!”

“Uzumaki. From today onwards, you are Uzumaki Naruto.” She presented him a sheet of paper, just a ripped scrap that she had written herself. “This is how it’s written, okay?”

“Uzumaki. Uzumaki. Uzumaki Uzumaki Uzumaki Uzumaki…” He tasted the arrangement of syllables on his tongue, repeating it until he was satisfied. He flashed her a grin so big and so bright it rivaled the sun itself. “I like it! We’re both Uzumaki!”

Konan shrank slightly, knowing she would have to disappoint him yet again. “I must apologize, Naruto-chan…”

His shoulders slumped and his demeanor dimmed. He turned away, sucked inside the heavy goop of his thoughts and wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I see. That name is just mine too, right?”

“Yes.”

He grunted and nodded, then placed his half-eaten slice onto his plate. He wiped the grease and sauce from his palms across the fabric of his shorts, before casually shrugging the whole thing off. He smiled.

“Well, we don’t need to be related, anyways.”

Konan leaned over and affectionately squeezed him around the shoulders.

“That’s right.”

* * *

 

Turning six didn’t feel particularly different, not emotionally maybe, his priorities were roughly the same too, although seven months ago he had finally been able to cross ‘Family’ off his wishlist.

Two months into kindergarten and he eventually came to an understanding: He was busier than usual. Sure, he didn’t receive take-home work, not like those buttmunch brothers had back at the old place, but between waking up at a certain hour, remembering his uniform, his yellow hat, red backpack, remembering to eat, remembering to brush his teeth and doing all this in time to grab the bus had been a very taxing study in time management for his limited organizational skills. Sometimes he arrived a little smelly. Other times he slept in or missed the bus and Konan had to come over and drive him there.

Tonight she was going to show him how to get there from his apartment. Apparently it was actually within walking distance, but he couldn’t discern that.

The first day, Naruto had hovered from the safety of the corner, wrinkling his baby blue shirt in his hands and observing who was who and what they were like.

There was a boisterous and confident girl with silky pearl blonde hair. Her name was Ino. She wore her hair short and clipped to the side. Her eyes were sky blue and pupiless, but in terms of uniqueness they paled in comparison to Hyuuga Hinata’s eyes. She seemed to have a rather protective demeanor towards the weaker girls, especially Haruno Sakura.

Haruno Sakura looked just as shy as he felt yet much more miserable. Her blossom pink hair was also short and appeared as though she had never combed it since birth, a disheveled combination of static-charged flyaways and conditioner-thickened strands.

He wanted to talk to her, he really did. But he was somewhat intimidated by Ino.

Then there was Fatso, er, Choji. A round ball of dorky kindness, he was constantly snacking or asking for snacks but was never above sharing his food if another kid asked him. He had a best friend, Shikamaru.

Naruto couldn’t say much about him, it seemed like he couldn’t get enough of Nap Time.

Someone else that he couldn’t figure out was the quiet and enigmatic Shino. He couldn’t seem to get enough of reading science books on insects, nor could he be easily separated from the ant farm by the teacher’s desk. He was the only one fascinated and unafraid to view the ants consume a freshly killed cockroach come lunch time.

Shino’s buddy was the complete opposite of him. Kiba was a wild and energetic boy, a little hotheaded and competitive, and more than a little sure of himself. For some reason he always smelled like the inside of a dog’s kennel.

Lastly, there was the well-mannered and independent Sasuke.

The day Naruto had the courage to approach him, he tripped on his face. It wouldn’t be until second grade when Naruto finally tried again. By that time, he had grown into his place amongst his peers.

He was neither a nuisance nor a goody-goody. He was neither popular nor unpopular. Half the kids remembered his name and the other half did not. It seemed like he was perpetually caught in-between.

It was nice up until a point. Everyone’s individuality had roughly formed by fourth grade.

Choji was a generous glutton with a berserk button.

Shikamaru was a genius sloth who was really into puzzles and board games like Chess and Shogi.

Ino was into flower arrangement and fashion.

Sakura, who had finally come out of her shell, started wearing headbands, all kinds of headbands: thick cotton bows, cat ears, silk ribbons, flower wreaths, anything. He wasn’t against it, she sure made herself interesting by changing it up. Plus her forehead was super cute, big and round. That aside, she was growing into bit of a bossy streak, while being a studious goody-goody.

Kiba was just Kiba, and Shino was just Shino. Dog boy and Bug boy. Hothead and… Sunglasses.

And Sasuke, well, he came from a long line of law enforcement officers and civil servants. He was a quietly helpful guy towards the teachers when the two smartest guys in the class -- Shikamaru and Shino -- were respectively too lazy and too monosyllabic and odd to be relied upon. Sasuke had no obvious weaknesses, no quirks. Any girl who was catching the flow of puberty early seemed to crush on him hard, but he treated their affections with bland politeness as if their romantic interest didn’t really exist, so he was no ladies’ man either.

In the end, Sasuke was just Sasuke.

And Naruto wanted to be more than Naruto, in every sense. More than himself, and more than that fantasy hero who shared his name.

* * *

 

“Ehh? Naruto? Like the character?” This snotty girl, Ami, with cropped hair the color of a violet crayon, stood with her hand on her hip and her head craned so far to the side that he thought it would fall right off her shoulders.

Ebisu-sensei had decided to include him more in organizing the class, instead of making Sasuke always bear the load. So what his teacher had him doing was make rounds through the class, getting in touch with everyone so that they were prepared for the upcoming Study Marathon.

“Yeah, so this marathon--”

She interrupted him. “I don’t care about that. No way I’m sleeping over here studying until my eyes bleed.”

“But he really wants everyone to participate. He said we can have snacks. And there’ll be a game--”

“So who’s dumb idea was it to name you ‘Naruto’?”

 _Dumb?_ He had grown rather comfortable since his inheritance, he hadn’t looked back on those painful memories since, nor had he put much stock into the possibility that those days were never over.

“I,I dunno. Why, is it that bad?”

Ami shrugged, arrogance pulling at her lips. “It’s alright, I guess. But the thing is, all I can think about when I hear that name is the redheaded hero, Naruto, not you who is also Naruto.”

 _Not me, but someone else._ The floor drew his gaze. This wouldn’t be the first time he was overlooked, seen as something else other than who he truly was, something less than who he was. He wasn’t the first Naruto, but he was a real flesh and blood Naruto.

“Maybe you should change your name. Ever consider that? Ah, hey! Where’re you going?!”

* * *

 

Konan was treating him to a movie and dinner tonight. He could barely contain himself, so the very second that school had let out, he jumped out the classroom window and sprinted out onto the dirt track in the field.

He hadn’t been keeping count, but the sun had dipped a degree since he began.

Unexpectedly, he had sprinted past Kiba. What was he doing here? Two laps later, Sasuke was catching up to him. Naruto whipped his head side to side and both boys ran alongside him.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, why’re you two slowing down? I thought we were racing!” exclaimed Kiba.

Naruto looked at him as if he were insane. “Since when?!”

“I dunno, since you started, I guess.”

“I’m getting picked up by my ‘Nee-chan. I’ve got a lot of energy, so I’m just killing time.” Naruto explained.

“Why are you expending your energy if you’ve got plans later? Aren’t you going to be too tired or too dirty by then?” Sasuke offered.

Naruto slowed to a stop, Sasuke’s logic dawning on him. Frantic blue eyes widening, Naruto gripped at his scalp. “Oh no! No, no! We’re supposed catch a movie! Ahhh, I can’t run home and make it back here! I don’t have a phone either! Ahh, stupid, stupid!”

“Whoa, calm down. I wasn’t trying to freak you out.”

“Why are you here, anyways? You didn’t think I was challenging you to a race too, right?”

Sasuke was tight-lipped as he offered a shrug. Naruto wasn’t convinced that Sasuke came over on a whim. He wasn’t that kind of guy.

Naruto brushed past them, aiming to rinse his face in the outdoor sink up ahead. Reaching the top of the hill, he called out over his shoulder: “You’re both weird!”

Sasuke and Kiba watched him depart, and Kiba voiced what they were both thinking: “Wanna wait and see what his sister looks like?”

“Yep.”

* * *

 

Naruto sat beside Konan in the dark of the theater, stuffing handful after handful of popcorn into his mouth as the gritty fantasy film played on the big screen.

**“Waitwaitwait! I,I,I know you! I,I know you! Y,You’re a g,gunslinger!!” exclaimed a boy, thirsty after his trek across the desert and overwhelmed as a man he had seen in his dreams pointed an old-fashioned six-shooter at his face.**

The film would eventually reveal the source of the boy’s inner pain by way of a tempting illusion: his long-dead father was alive here in this other world and was beckoning his son to embrace him.

Naruto’s hand paused at his mouth. The tears bubbling from the protagonist’s eyes at the relief he was feeling to hear his father’s voice again, to see him, it resonated inside Naruto only to make him realize that he felt hollow. He couldn’t cry the same tears the boy did, for he had no one to miss, but knowing that this was something he should be feeling gave him a funny sort of pain. He felt like an anomaly, someone who had everything and nothing at the same time. Just stuck in-between.

He simply didn’t know how to cry like the boy did.

 

Exiting the theater, Konan petted Naruto’s hair. “How did you like the movie?”

Naruto sipped on his soda and gave a mild shrug. “It was okay. Some stuff was cool and some other stuff wasn’t as cool.” He didn’t know how to go into detail despite the fact that all of it was floating inside his head, waiting to be strung together into a coherent sentence. But his opinion was all the same: He didn’t hate it but he didn’t care for it much either. Despite that, he mulled over the bond that had formed between the boy and the gunslinger, and Naruto began to wonder if it wasn’t too late for him. Maybe he could form a relationship like that, find his own father figure. “Could we stop by a bookstore?”

Konan smiled and stroked his hair again. “Of course.”

 

Just as expected, the novel the film was based on was being sold towards the front. Some books had the original cover and other books had the movie poster for their cover. The place smelled of coffee and poppy seed.

There were so many kids here with their parents, it nearly overwhelmed him. Chubby-faced babies passed out on their dad’s shoulder, a noisy boy and girl tugging on a hand each of their father, and a mother double-swaddling her two sleeping infants, one attached to her front and the other at her back.

Naruto picked up the novel from the stand and turned his face into his shoulder. Instead of walking with him, Konan had allowed him to wander in on his own until he was ready for her. He couldn’t ask her to pick him up and carry him on her hip like some of the other kids. He couldn’t tell her that he wanted hugs so tight that he couldn’t breathe. Konan was his new and only family but no amount quality time would fully remove the fact that they were still strangers to one another, only brought together by a loss that was one-sided.

But maybe Jiraiya was as close to a father figure that he could get. Death didn’t have to keep them apart, did it? He could come to know the man, then care for him.

Then maybe he could learn to cry as the boy did in the film.

* * *

 

Ino and Sakura had broke up. Their friendship broke up, that is. Also, the classroom was pretty split on this, but Naruto felt pretty sure that Sakura had initiated it.

Both girls had developed mad hots for the dark and reliable Sasuke, and both had decided to compete with the length of their hair. It was rather cliché, but it was happening. Then somewhere along the way, Sakura felt it necessary to express her deepest gratitude towards Ino by throwing it in her face.

The aura between these two actually frightened Kiba on some level. It did seem that boys leaned more towards sportsmanship than girls did. Did girls even have a philosophy like sportsmanship? Sportswomanship?

He’d seen Ami do some crazy things to the other girls in and out class: grabbed their hair, made one girl pretend to be her pony for a whole day, tricked them out of their lunches and most prevalent were how she managed to turn compliments into scathing insults. And yet these girls remained in her presence. Did they think her a stronger Alpha than Ino?

He decided that girls simply existed within their own little society with their own little rules, and he would never understand them.

* * *

 

“‘Nee-chan! ‘Nee-chan! I got invited to someone’s house! I’m someone’s friend! … I think!” Naruto finally had a phone, and he loved it. It made organizing his life as a whole easier, but mainly he had that much more flexibility for his budding social life. He could maintain Konan’s peace of mind by keeping in touch with her, and he could add people’s numbers and emails into his contacts and become friends with them and never be apart from them too!

_“That’s so wonderful, Naru-chan. Which classmate invited you?”_

“Sasuke! Sasuke did! It really threw me off because,because he didn’t seem like he would, I guess. He’s nice enough but kind of closed off, so I mean, I dunno what I’m saying, am I rambling?”

_“It’s fine. I hope you have fun.”_

“Yeah!”

 

 

Sasuke lived with his older brother, Itachi. Apparently his brother had a dispute with his parents and moved out of their home, taking Sasuke with him just recently.

Maybe that was why Sasuke reached out to him? A change like that would surely make you feel your mortality just a little.

Itachi was an awesome older brother. He was doting, calm, a bit sarcastic, sometimes he could be disarmingly weird and Naruto loved every bit of his attention. Sasuke seemed embarrassed in contrast.

After a meal of miso fish and rice, Naruto helped the two brothers clean up. He didn’t want to mess up his opportunity of gaining his first true friend since Haku by being lazy, guest or not.

Naruto and Sasuke were gathered around the television, when Itachi poked his head out from the sliding door that connected to the kitchen. “You two good? I got to go take care of something, but I should be back in a few hours.”

Sasuke waved him off without even looking. “Be safe.”

With that, the sliding door closed shut.

The current program had ended and some anime had begun. Naruto’s eyes widened as the title card slammed into his vision.

**TALES OF A GUTSY NINJA RE: CONTINENT OF CHAOS**

Naruto winced at the corny subtitle. After the opening sequence passed, it opened up into a vicious battle between magically powered super soldiers. Dust billowed high in the sky. Attacks were called. And then there he was, hair red as poppies, his visible eye strangely pale and oddly ringed throughout, no sclera.

**“NARUTO!!” cried a female ninja.**

“Can I have the remote?” Naruto grumbled.

Sasuke observed him for a beat before placing the remote into his waiting hand.

“You hate your parents for naming you after him?” He began casually as Naruto flipped through the channels.

“I’m an orphan. I didn’t even have a last name until five years ago. No point being mad at people I’ll never know.”

 _Well, that explains why those two don’t look related at all._ Sasuke, sitting lotus style, rested his elbows atop his knees as he leaned forward, confusion knitting his brows. “How did you get a last name? Did you discover your family register?”

Naruto's response was bland. “Hm… I hadn’t thought about that.”

"What, your family register? Just look it up."

Naruto frowned. He wouldn't openly protest to drop the subject, not wanting to ruin his time here with Sasuke, but it was hard to think about this stuff sometimes. "But I wouldn't be on it."

"But it's your last name. The people you're supposed to be related to will be on it."

Naruto shrugged. How could that be proven? And what would he do with that knowledge? "... I think I'm fine. I have 'Nee-chan."

Sasuke knew there were a lot of orphans in the region, but Naruto was so happy-go-lucky, he never would have suspected. “When were you born?”

Naruto was quiet at first. But then finally, in a soft voice devoid of emotion, he answered: “On a bad day.”

**“Welcome back to the Evening Edition. Tonight’s stories…”**

Sasuke collapsed backwards with a groan.

“You watch the news and you’re ten?!”

“I'm just checking something, it won't take long. I wanna know if they’re going to talk about her at all.”

“Who?”

Naruto’s teeth sank into his bottom lip. “You’re going to make fun of me.”

Sasuke rolled side to side, flapping his arms and kicking his legs impatiently against the tatami. “No, I’m not. I don’t give a crap. Who are you talking about?”

Who was he talking about, indeed. Other than a poor little soul with the most darling looks he had ever seen. A girl that he had never forgotten, one who he couldn’t allow to be too far from his mind.

“... Hyuuga Hinata.”

“Hyuuga…” Sasuke’s eyes snapped to the size of saucers. “They’re yakuza!”

“So!? That’s not her fault! She’s been missing for six years! Look,” Naruto tapped away at his phone and pulled up her picture, the one from the news. He shoved his phone in Sasuke’s direction. “She’s cute, huh?”

Sasuke’s lopsided gaze slid from the phone to Naruto, then to the phone, then back again. “Dude, that’s a toddler.”

“She’s our age, idiot! Don’t make it weird!”

“You’re the weird one!” Sasuke rolled onto his knees. “You said a toddler’s image was cute like you were into her!”

“She isn’t going to look like that now!” Naruto’s cheeks were burning, but he chalked it up to the conversation, and not the girl in subject.

Sasuke plopped onto his butt, his smile brimming with sarcasm. “Yeah, maybe when she’s grown she’ll be hot like your sister.”

“Don’t perv on my ‘Nee-chan!” Naruto grabbed the lap pillow beneath his butt and chucked it at Sasuke’s head.

Itachi would eventually come home to a television pushed askew, a lamp knocked over with its shade pierced through and a cloud cover of feathers across the tatami from one ruined lap pillow.

* * *

 

Naruto measured his breaths as his sneakers pounded away at the dirt track. He circled his fifth lap and Sasuke was jogging in place up ahead, waiting for him.

“You hanging out with your sis again?”

“Nope!”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Challenging you! C’mon, I already made five laps, you gotta catch up!” Naruto laughed as the Spring wind tousled his sweat-drenched hair.

He soon regretted his taunting for Sasuke had easily caught up to him in two-point-five laps. That brief-lived disappointment bloomed into a glowing, magnificent idea. “Let’s do sports together!”

“You mean join a track team?”

“Sure! But I wanna try baseball, basketball, volleyball, uhm, kendo!”

“Kendo? Really?”

“Yeah! Oh, and swimming, and gymnastics, and when I get bigger I’m gonna do weight-lifting!”

Sasuke couldn’t keep up anymore, the laughter pulled him aside as he stood bowled over, grabbing his stomach.

Naruto jogged in place beside him, his scrunched into a frown. “What, you don’t think I can lift weights?”

“That’s not it. You just caught me off guard. But I accept,” Sasuke straightened himself and offered his hand. “Let’s be training partners.”

Grinning with the glint of determination bright in his eyes, Naruto clapped his hand into Sasuke’s.

* * *

 

At eleven years old, Naruto would develop a talent for teasing.

His homeroom teacher, Ebisu, was a silly man with a flair for dramatics, his gestures often wide and sweeping with the whole use of his arms, and his manner of speech complicated, haughty and theatrical.

And over these past four years, Naruto had learned something about Ebisu-sensei that no one else knew: He was a covert perv. And what better way to test his jokes than to be covert as well?

Every test paper and sheet of homework he would use a kanji character that was phonetically alike to the answer but would be read as something utterly lewd and inappropriate.

And Ebisu-sensei had grown to dread receiving his papers; always at his desk, head in his hands and brows clenched behind his round sunglasses, doing his best to grade his work with the utmost objectivity.

Did Naruto ever get into trouble for these antics? No. Because the truth was, Ebisu-sensei was too proud to punish him. An eleven year old handling advanced kanji all for the art of the joke, well, unserious reasons or not he had the motivation to teach himself and as a teacher he couldn’t ask for more.

As the fifth grade was ending, one afternoon during the final week, Ebisu-sensei had called out to him. Naruto, who was mainly curious, obeyed his teacher and approached his desk.

The classroom had emptied, everyone had gone home or to their respective clubs.

Naruto folded his arms behind his head. “What’s up, Sensei?”

Ebisu laced his fingers atop his desk and smiled gently at the boy. “I wonder if you have any inclination towards the art of language. Have you fancied becoming a writer, Naruto?”

“Nope.”

Ebisu’s grin faltered.

“I see. I realize you haven’t enjoyed the required books that we’ve read and discussed in class, but surely you must enjoy some amount of reading, yes?”

“Manga, I guess?”

Ebisu thought to himself, _That may explain his dexterity with the kanji._ Perhaps he had been putting this little trickster on a pedestal. It was only natural for a child who received the desired response to attach to that and keep pushing for more and more of that response.

Ebisu decided to dismiss the conversation he had planned. He turned away and pushed himself to full height, never letting the acquired fondness slip away as he spoke.

“It is a shame I cannot follow you into your junior high years, but I do look forward to what you may become. Please do consider all the possibilities as they present themselves. You never know; You may find out that you’re quite good at many things.”

Had Naruto strongly invested in those words, he may have come to resent Ebisu.

* * *

 

A lot things about Naruto bothered Sasuke, but not all in a bad way. Between his bountiful enthusiasm for self-reinvention and his questionable obsession with a missing girl whom he had never met, Naruto seemed to truly embody his given names. He was a storm apt to spiral out of control, for better or worse.

Sasuke was the type of individual who strongly felt things, felt love and ache in simultaneous continuum, worry and humor like one fed the other, a symbiotic relationship of nerves and heartstrings that were only tamed by his inclination for empiricism and logic.

This psyche of his apparently ran in the family, had bred generations of passionate police officers and detectives, and for good measure a couple cabinet members and three police commissioners; people who saw pain and fought tooth-and-nail to turn it into peace for the victims.

In his opinion, Naruto was a largely overlooked individual, one who seemed to have deeper wells of empathy than he could fathom and a stronger drive for justice than he could muster.

That was one of the things that bothered him. A human has limits. If his heart does not, will it eventually corrode his mind?

As Sasuke picked at his dinner, his brother spoke up, having taken notice of the younger’s pensive state.

“Something troubling you, Otouto?”

“... Yeah. Naruto is weird.”

“Ah.”

* * *

 

At twelve years old, Naruto would be attending his final grade school field trip at the Tokonoha Metropolitan Arboretum. The other five classes had come as well, having diverged from the parking lot with their respective teachers and tour guides.

From the outside the arboretum was insanely massive, supposedly two miles in diameter and a mile high, with its design caught between a jumbo jet hangar and a gilded birdcage. It bubbled at the base, then rose into slender pointed arches with all the grandeur of an ancient cathedral. Sun-sparkled foliage billowed out the top and spilled over the structure like seafoam. The millions of glass shields glinted like gasoline beneath the late summer sun.

As they filed through the entrance and received their lanyards and educational pamphlets, a myriad of wet scents his nose all at once, the smothering comfort of hot rain and the stimulating tobacco-like scent of damp undergrowth, to the musty moss and the toady stench of moist peat and stagnant pond water.

Glancing at his pamphlet map, he saw illustrations of wooden towers and winding bridges and patches of rope netting to crawl over or lay out on.

“Hey, Ebisu-sensei! I wanna go to the Adventure part already!” Naruto badgered in good-nature, giggling madly to himself. He might have eaten a whole pack of caffeine chewing gum on the bus ride over, not that he was going to admit it. The last time he consumed anything that induced unnatural energy, he had been quite a handful, hopping, screaming and darting about, and had been assigned permanently to Ebisu’s side for the remainder of the trip, much to the man’s exhaustion.

“Please wait, Uzumaki-kun! We’ll be there within the hour!” Ebisu did that thing where he pushed up his glasses when he was irritated or stressed. But sometimes he also did it when he was smug or reaching the best part in a history lesson, specifically when something really shocking and clever occurred that changed the tides of this war or that war.

Naruto flung his head back in a rather dramatic fashion. “Fiiiiiiiine!”

As they skimmed past the carnivorous plants that smelled vaguely of ass and the creeping vines that carpeted the glass walls with their star-like purple blooms, Naruto fished around in his cargo pockets, then pulled out his flip-phone. Clipped between the fold was a photo that he didn’t want ruined.

“Sensei,” Sakura called out tentatively. “Wasn’t this place closed down a few years ago?”

Naruto paused and lowered his phone. Ebisu had fallen silent, his demeanor rigid.

“Yes, well… I’m not sure that is appropriate to discuss.”

Well, nuts to that. His curiosity was piqued. “What happened?”

Ebisu palmed his face with a groan. “You kids have phones, yes? Look it up if you like, but please refrain from discussing it at length. We’re not the only ones here today, the subject may upset someone.”

Naruto jogged up to Sakura and Sasuke sauntered beside him.

“Sakura-chan, what is it? What happened here that’s so bad?”

Her snippy glower softened when she became aware that Sasuke was the other half of her audience. She leaned in close, her hand cupped around her mouth as she whispered carefully. “See that massive vine at the center of the arboretum?” How could they miss it? It nearly took up the entire greenhouse. It was twisted clockwise, its dull bark like sinew and tendons. It tapered towards the top and was shriveled and wilted like a bloodless dandelion, the tip of which had these sharp, heart-shaped shields for leaves that reminded him of an artichoke. There was a flat plane in the center of these leaves. Perhaps it was meant to flower? “The bottom floor was forbidden up until three years ago due to an ongoing homicide investigation.”

“What? They found a body way down there?”

“Not one body. Not sure how many; they really tried to keep it under wraps.”

Naruto forced his voice lower as his curiosity rose. “When did they find these bodies?”

“Twelve years ago.” Sasuke murmured solemnly. “I didn’t realize you were talking about _that_ , Sakura-chan.”

Naruto’s head snapped in Sasuke’s direction. “Oh damn, did someone in your family work on this, Sasuke?”

“Yeah, my dad,” The grim severity in Sasuke’s eyes swept away the voyeuristic intrigue that had settled over his friends. They pulled away, subdued by the reality of the story. “Sensei is right, we shouldn’t talk about this.”

Naruto nodded with a muted vow, reminding himself he had more important things to do today. Shifting his eyes side to side, checking that no one was going to tease him, he pulled out the three by three photo and pocketed his phone.

Naruto slowed his steps and drifted well behind the class, hopping from stumpy ledge to ledge as he held the photo outwards, as if he was catching sun rays.

“Is that what I think it is?” Sasuke deadpanned with an arched brow.

Naruto stiffened slightly before sheepishly laughing it off. “Well, I figured since she can’t be here to enjoy the trip with us, I thought I could capture some memories for her, then maybe she can see this place when she dreams.”

Sasuke digested his words with a cautious uncertainty, as if he had no choice but to consume some mysterious slog concocted by a psychotically ill witch doctor.

“I’m sorry, you could repeat that?”

Naruto lowered the picture, deflating with an exasperated sigh. “I’m trying, okay?!”

“Trying what? You sound effing crazy, you know that?”

Naruto sunk claws into his scalp as he glared through slits at his friend. “Nevermind! Just lemme do this!”

As illogical as this conversation was, Sasuke uncovered the most logical explanation a person could and voiced his question: “Are you in love with her?”

Naruto’s frustration melted away, replaced by cock-eyed innocence. “No. I’ve never met her.”

Right. Sasuke internally shook his head, his heart heavy with concern. His friend was a hopeless guy. More than that, his friend’s mind was a trap that he all too easily fell into, and there was no clear solution to his attachment issues.

This was an issue, right?

On the other hand, he expected no less from Naruto, bottomless though his heart was.

Sasuke turned away, intending to return to the back of the class. “Carry on then, you weirdo.”

“Hey! Not cool!” Naruto jumped down and chased after him.

Sasuke’s gaze slid in Naruto’s direction as the boy stamped across the planks when an oddity caught his eye, one he should have noticed immediately earlier.

Across the atrium stood the lone silhouette of a figure, obscured beneath black cloths, adorned with a strange, one-eyed orange mask. That black void for an eyehole was aimed right at them.

Sasuke snatched Naruto’s wrist and dragged him along. He ignored the boy’s protests, the breathless fright hammering his lungs empty, threatening to sink his rationale into oblivion.

Daring a final glance, his expectations were turned upside down.

He was real. Still there. Still watching.

Sasuke threw himself into a headlong sprint and forced Naruto into the same.

The youngest Uchiha would find himself in a pit of nightmares later that night, the first of many to come, which he would keep to himself for weeks.

* * *

 

Naruto brushed his teeth over his bathroom sink, whilst tempestuous metalcore blasted from his new smartphone. His reflection revealed a squashed mop of spiky blonde locks and bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes. He reached up and fingered his bedhead. He contemplated getting a haircut. His gakuran uniform had arrived yesterday. Two more days and he would officially be a junior high student.

Naruto gripped the waistband of his boxers and tugged them away, assessing the changes he had undergone the past four months. Of course he was going to keep growing, but the foundations of adulthood were official. All he was missing was the deepening of his voice.

As usual, Sasuke was first at everything, even puberty. Then again… either Sasuke shaved his legs or his changes were the reverse of Naruto’s.

Naruto murmur-screamed and headbanged along to the lyrics as foamy spittle dotted his reflection and dribbled down his chin.

The music cut out, replaced by a generic ringtone which he had yet to change out. He swiped the answer call.

“Sasuke. So who was it? Did I win?” He dipped his face into the sink and spat.

_“Nope, we both lost. It was Choji.”_

“No shit, haha. To what?”

_“Uh, apparently he’s into dark girls.”_

It was too much for Naruto to take as he gripped the sink and laughed his heart out. The hollow porcelain amplified his volume, drowning out the laughter on Sasuke’s end.

The cusp of thirteen was a ripe time for bodily humor.

* * *

 

Naruto would soon find that the cusp of thirteen was also ripe for trouble, imagined or otherwise.

But this was very, very real.

Naruto couldn’t move. He couldn’t process his concepts into abstractions, and those into intelligent thoughts. His palms were slick with cold sweat, his mouth had gone dry.

A strong grip on his shoulder jostled him, and the sharp gasp he drew was the fuel to his long dormant fire.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Sasuke prodded. He had never seen Naruto like this, with such a venomous scowl shadowing his face.

And just like that, it was gone.

“Sorry, sorry. Everything’s fine.” Naruto muttered, forcing his legs through the muck of his anxieties and letting the fire in his gut burn a path towards the back of the classroom.

Taking the final seat near the window, Naruto reclined with an impudent arm slung over the back. Chin tucked against his neck, he glowered from beneath his brows, silently asserting his predatory dominance over the man in question at the teacher’s desk. _His_ desk.

“Good morning, everyone. I’m your homeroom teacher, Iruka-sensei.”

 _This should be good._ Naruto thought darkly.

* * *

 

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura rested in front of a smooth stone fountain in the city, sating their teen metabolisms with grilled and saucy street food.

Sakura, her legs curled flirtatiously beneath her, leaned towards Sasuke for a kiss when Naruto saw an opportunity.

“Ah ah ah, Sakura-chan, bad. Bad girl. What do you think you’re doing?”

Sasuke grinned, instantly tuned to his mischievous frequency.

Sakura, who had grown to be quite the little spitfire, skewered Naruto with her glare, offended by his interruption. “Get lost. You know we’re dating.”

“Well, that’s the thing. Sasuke is like a brother to me and you never asked for my blessing.”

Sasuke bit on the inside of his cheeks, his nostrils flaring as he withheld his mirth deep inside his chest. His sort-of girlfriend did need to learn to be a better sport. What boy didn't enjoy ribbing a cute girl? If she thought she was immune to teasing from him, she was going to be sorely disappointed in the near future. He was only human, after all.

“Yeah, _babe_ , you didn’t ask hi--” Sasuke sputtered and folded over his knees, wheezing for breath before a series of sharp cackles spilled from his gut.

“Sasuke is chaste like a shrine maiden. So, ya know, you guys gotta keep it on the outside. No penetration, only rubbing.”

Sakura flew off the fountain, her face burning bright red, as her sort-of boyfriend broke down into renewed hysterics, his voice caught between a throaty bass and the breathless squeaks of an octave he no longer had access to.

“You’re both idiots!” She huffed as she grabbed her school bag and marched off. Both boys managed to grab a hand each, apologizing as they pulled her back to the fountain, sitting her down between them.

“Ya know, I think you hold yourself back too much,” Naruto grinned. “You gotta let loose. At least try to around us.”

Sakura crossed her arms and glared at him skeptically. “Let loose like how? Is that another perverted joke of yours?”

“Well, see, I think if I keep pushing the right buttons, you’ll probably hit me, right? And we guys like to communicate through violence. Am I right?” Naruto referred his rhetorical question to Sasuke. The youngest Uchiha replied with a swift punch to Naruto’s shoulder. Naruto rubbed at the affliction and laughed, turning his attention back to Sakura. “See?”

“So, let me get this straight: In order to better get along with your guys’ dynamic, I have to punch you?”

“It’s a start.” Naruto had no idea if he was thrilled or frightened when Sakura pulled her elbow back, a fist cocked and locked onto his face. She never gave him a warning as her tight knuckles connected with the bridge of his nose, sending him backwards into the municipal water. When he arose -- frigid and soaked -- with Sasuke’s help, Sakura was freaking out, her hands clasped over her mouth in a frozen gasp. For her sake, he grinned at her and laughed it off. “There you are.”

“You’re bleeding.” Sasuke commented with a touch of humor.

“Eh?”

Sakura burst into a panicked a shriek. “You’re bleeding!!”

Naruto reached up and gingerly grazed the bridge of his nose. Hot, sharp pain lanced between his eyes and lit his brain like a firecracker. Blood smeared onto his palm in a wide swath and for some unclear reason, he thought it was the funniest thing ever.

* * *

 

Naruto came in the next day, the flesh around his nose swollen and darkly bruised, and held in place by a thin white strip of tape between his eyes.

Amusement floated on his lips as he glanced in Sakura’s direction. Her cheeks puffed with annoyed mortification. He knew she would come around someday, that she would join the two halves of herself, the one that she wanted people to see and the other that she kept locked away, becoming completely, unapologetically herself. She fought so hard just be comfortable in her own skin that he really admired her struggle, he felt it.

And if Sasuke was going to be serious about her someday, he would like to get along with her better. He wasn’t particularly crazy for the type of people who lied to themselves.

“Naruto.” Iruka’s voice was flat and stern. Naruto questioned if he would get used to this arrangement. Becoming a teacher must have been Iruka’s ‘out’ from the sticks. Naruto had a couple unqualified teachers in his day, to which he had turned to Ebisu with his frustrations, from whom he had learned that the application process was ungodly lenient. If you were young and willing, welcome aboard.

Squinting in irritation, Naruto reared back and stood before his teacher’s desk. The man would not rise from his seat, nor look at him directly, but he had seen his face and the state of it.

“Did you get into trouble, again?”

Half of Naruto’s face scrunched in derisive confusion. “What do you mean ‘again’?”

“It’s a nasty injury you got there. Who’d you pick a fight with?”

Naruto whipped his head in Sakura’s direction. She shrugged, looking just as baffled as he felt.

“Nobody. There was no fight.” He corrected.

Sakura rose from her seat. “Iruka-sensei, I hit him. The context is a little hard to explain, but we were just playing around.”

Naruto decided that Sakura should be a keeper. Already much of that high-and-mighty veneer from their childhood had gone away, revealing hints of a virtuous young woman.

Iruka’s bland gaze lifted from the educational material that he was compiling and he observed Sakura for a beat, considering her words.

“Haruno-san, you’re the Class Representative. Do you think violence is becoming of your position?”

Naruto shifted his attention back to Sakura. Her face stained red, her expression squirmed. Her eyes dropped to the floor as she seated herself. “No, Sensei.”

“If you would prefer, you could recant your involvement and I’ll look the other way.”

Sakura’s eyes snapped up to Naruto’s, confliction twisting a knife in her gut. Her lips fluttered wordlessly. What kind of choice was that?

Naruto’s fingers curled into white-knuckled fists. “Fine. I got in a fight, I guess. I dunno with who. I didn’t see their face.”

Iruka looked away and nodded at his papers. “Go to the Infirmary, Naruto. Get a face mask. Your injury will disrupt the class’s ability to concentrate on today’s work.”

Naruto couldn’t have rolled his eyes any further without losing them inside his skull. “Are you kidding me? I sit all the way in the back. No one is going to get ‘distracted’. What, do you want me to dye my hair black, too?”

Two large hands slapped at the wooden desk and it seemed as if all the sound in the room has been sucked through a vacuum.

A tremble in Naruto’s chest threatened to spread and overtake his body, and just like the other day, his mind was dead silent.

“You want to be insubordinate? Fine. Don’t cover your face. You can go sit properly on the floor.”

The class erupted in hushed, incredulous chatter like a field of cicadas during the height of summer.

“Properly?” Naruto parroted numbly.

“Yes, properly. Go. **Now**.”

Iruka was referring to the _seiza_. An outdated custom in these postmodern times. At least for commoners. Naruto distantly thought that he would like to see Iruka try to sit properly, but he kept his retorts to himself.

Naruto resembles a freshly risen zombie as he turns away from Iruka’s desk, and thirty-two sets of eyes drill and burn through his very core. He does not see them, not really, his mind too caught up in things he’d rather forget.

Naruto reaches his desk which he is not allowed to sit in, and he turns to face the front of the class. He drops to his left knee. Then he lowers onto his right. He’s ignoring the quiet distress emanating from Sasuke seated to his right. Naruto lowers onto his heels and arranges his feet so that his ankles are outwards and toes are flush to the floor.

Iruka never told him how long he had to sit like this. Naruto could only imagine that his reprieve would come with the lunch bell. Four hours from now.

Iruka wasn’t done yet. “I won’t have brawlers in my classroom,” The cicada-like whispers stirred anew as the students shared their anxiety and bafflement through pinched faces. Naruto was not a brawler. Naruto never picked a fight. Those who knew him never saw him injured outside of sports, and Sakura had already explained away this massive misunderstanding. And yet their teacher didn’t seem to care about the facts or the contexts, but instead he was preoccupied with something else. Something no one could quite figure out yet. “Anyone who chooses to behave recklessly outside these doors will be met with discipline. You are all now considered adults. I advise you to behave as adults.”

Sasuke looked to his lower left, his friend glued to the ground beside him. His hands were trembling in his lap. His eyes were flat, checked out. He appeared stony and limp at the same time.

And Sasuke felt utterly useless.

* * *

 

The intercom pinged with the call to lunch.

Sasuke bent slightly and offered his arms and Naruto, unable to feel his legs, clasped his hands around Sasuke’s forearms. Sasuke gripped Naruto’s forearms and pulled him to his feet.

Naruto stumbled. He planted his left hand against Sasuke’s desk to catch himself, his right hand clenched around Sasuke’s shoulder.

There was no helping it. Naruto couldn’t leave the classroom. Sasuke eased his friend into his desk, hoping he’d recover soon. “I’ll grab us food. What do you want?”

Naruto was slumped forward, forehead pressed against the wood and his left arm curled around his head. He shrugged. “Anything’s fine. Thanks.”

Ten minutes later when Sasuke would return victorious with an armful of curry-pan, he would see his friend in distress yet again, circled by a group of seven pissed off classmates.

“What’s the big idea, huh, Uzumaki?” complained a girl.

“What’re you talking about!?”

“Iruka-sensei. _That_ lecture.” She answered.

“Yeah, we don’t deserve to be dragged down with your stupidity.” said a boy.

“You really have to think of how your actions will affect others,” said another boy. “You may have been the one punished here, but we all got threatened. Haruno-san especially--”

“How about you don’t associate with Haruno-san,” interjected the first girl. “Save her the trouble of going through that again.”

That hit a nerve, he could tell. This was hurting Sasuke, too. Naruto was shutting down again, his eyes had gone flat and stormy, his body rigid, shoulders hunched defensively. Was Naruto really considering their demands? He should tell them to fuck off.

Sasuke chose to keep his head and not rush over, but somewhere in the back of his mind told him pride was for the weak. He couldn’t heed to that voice, even in this situation. He wasn’t wired that way. Not like Naruto was.

The group seemed to take notice of Sasuke’s approach halfway before he reached them and they took their leave. Somehow their bias stung him. They wouldn’t chide him for being friends with Naruto because he came from a good family, right? They wouldn’t demand Naruto to break ties because they thought the Uchiha were infallible, right? Fucking idiots.

“Hey.” Sasuke called out tentatively.

Naruto never spoke a word.

* * *

 

Those assholes had put Sasuke in a difficult position whether they meant to or not. Without his input, Sakura and Naruto had made a mutual agreement to suspend their friendship, leaving Sasuke to separate his time and attention between the two when he knew it didn’t have to be this way. He absolutely hated it.

Twilight descended beyond the local library walls. Sasuke peered over his textbook, checking in on his sort-of girlfriend. She had grown cold since her agreement with Naruto, forcing herself back into her good girl shell by a hundred and ten percent, and throwing her all into studying. He couldn’t help but ask her: “Do you miss him at all?”

Sakura flipped to the next page of her material, not once lifting her eyes from its contents. “Don’t you think that’s a weird thing to ask me? Why should I care about another guy that isn’t you?”

 _Because he’s your friend. Because you think he’s fun. And I think you’re bored as hell, even with me._ “... Guess that is weird.” He muttered.

Sakura flipped another page. “You and I, we can’t even be serious yet. If my mom knew you were more than my study partner, she’d kill me.”

“... Yeah, guess so.” Sasuke knew these three years were a rite of passage, one that would be a practice in hermitry and resilience. Yet it seemed he was having a difficult time subscribing to the comfort and convenience of a hive mind society, or at least one that idealized itself as so. It was making his friends miserable, and it was making him miserable by consequence. If he had to see Naruto singled out as ‘The nail that sticks up’ one more time, he was probably going to get ostracized right along with him. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would be for Sakura, though.

“That aside…” Sakura began, her tone changing, hints of sentimentality filtering through her walls. “I guess this arrangement is hard. I mean… I like you so much that sometimes it hurts.”

Sasuke lowered his book. He reached out and grazed the exposed skin of her left knee. Her cheeks pinked, her brows pinched and her lips squirmed into a frown, then she pulled away.

The love he experienced was like that of a sun-warmed window against his face, simple yet abstruse. He did not experience the pain of her absence, nor did he yearn for her when she was near. His body told him to hold her hands and touch her lips, but his brain held none of the romantic passions he expected to feel, instead it was a sense of unconditional importance. Maybe he was devoid of romance, maybe he was still a kid in that sense.

He began to wonder about Naruto’s continued attachment towards Hyuuga Hinata, a girl he could never have.

And he wondered if Naruto was ever going to wake up and move on.

* * *

 

Two months had passed since their first day of junior high, and the sports version of Hell Week was looming in the days ahead. Every junior sports team was having tryouts after classes for ten days straight, and knowing both Konoha South and North’s reputation, there would be cuts.

Naruto had waffled between Judo and Track & Field, the former satisfying his low-burning aggression and the latter satisfying his desire to run for running's sake, but Sasuke convinced him he was too small-built for Judo.

Currently, he was chasing the dirt oblong side-by-side with Sasuke on their half of the sports field. The northern half belonged to the high school, which sat just beyond the net wire fence.

Their skin was pebbled and streaked with sweat, their measured breaths heavy yet Naruto’s was louder, much harsher.

Sasuke was just good at everything. Twenty laps and he didn’t seem to be slowing down at all. Naruto couldn’t back down until he did, but Naruto also couldn’t let himself puke in front of his peers.

“We can stop if you’re tired!” Sasuke shouted.

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut and forced his lungs to take in more air. “Shut up! I,I got this!”

“It’s okay to have limits! You could break down your muscles if you overdo it!”

“Then! Why! Aren’t! You! Stopping?!”

Sasuke took the hint. Naruto’s obstinance was limitless too. Sasuke stopped running and in Naruto’s surprise, he tripped on his face.

Taking his leave and knowing that Naruto wasn’t going anywhere, Sasuke would eventually return with three ice cold water bottles, one of which he uncapped and poured over the steamed back of his knuckleheaded best friend.

* * *

 

The day that Naruto finally met Konan’s surviving brother, Nagato, those long unobserved doubts that had been stagnant in Naruto’s heart would begin to resurface.

Naruto sat at her large black granite-countered island, enjoying a bowl of fire-grilled fish over rice whilst the evening news droned on. Konan idly watched the footage of helicopters performing a rescue in flooded waters with him as she sipped on her glass of Riesling.

The click of the deadbolt echoed in the aerie, followed by the door shutting closed. After their guest shuffled off their shoes, a man emerged, his skin white as paper, his hair straight and bright red. It framed his jaw, parted above his left brow, revealing a single, stony eye.

He wore a three piece suit, slate gray and textured tweed, with a silk maroon dress shirt and a black tie. Beyond his dapper appearance, he really did resemble Musasabi Naruto from the **Gutsy** series. Or rather, that man Jiraiya really did design the character after his son, Nagato.

Naruto parted his lips to greet him, summoning all of his cheer and courage to smother his smallness.

Nagato took one look at the boy. Then he strode past him and greeted his sister. He bent in close to her ear, murmuring low. “-- he doing here?”

Naruto’s face burned at his rejection. _So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?_ Naruto turned in his seat, and Nagato understood that he had not been discreet enough. The man pulled away and stared the boy down with such a high level of disinterest that Naruto told himself not to be surprised.

Nagato knew about his existence for the past eight years, and not once did he try to meet him. Clearly he had planned on keeping it that way.

“... Maybe I could ask you the same thing.” Naruto threw back, the black puddles in his heart vibrating to life.

Nagato crossed his arms. “I have a key.”

“Nah. I mean ‘what am I doing here?’, ‘cuz I’d like to know.”

Konan lowered her glass, her placid eyes widened with the slightest of discomfort.

Nagato strode a step in Naruto’s direction, rolling his shoulders forward, attempting to enlarge his thin frame. Aggravation rolled off him in waves. “I’d tell you if I knew, because your name that day sure was one hell of a surprise.”

There it was. Out in the open. Nagato resented him.

Naruto rose from the stool, his feet in the bars so that he could confront Nagato at his level. “Wasn’t your old man a bit of a womanizer? Do I resemble him? Is that what’s got your panties twisted?!”

Naruto steeled himself the moment Nagato’s mouth pulled into a toothy sneer. A slap against the counter broke the aggressive spell that had possessed them and they gave Konan their wary attention.

“Unbelievable. You’re both just… unbelievable. Naruto, I thought you didn’t care about blood.” Konan was hunched over the counter, her forehead pressed into her clasped hands, barely masking her pained irritation.

The blackness squirmed inside Naruto’s chest, forcing him to take his seat. He was upsetting her, something he never imagined he would or could do.

“... I don’t.” His reply was weak and defensive, as if he had trouble convincing himself how he truly felt about anything. His eyes dropped to the floor before a bitter scowl darkened his face. Naruto hopped off the stool and dashed into the shadowed hallway. He slipped on his sneakers, grabbed his school bag and let himself out.

He already knew that he didn’t resemble Jiraiya, not even in the slightest. He had internet. The man had been an acclaimed novelist consistently since he was twenty-nine. It was easy to find even his childhood portraits.

Naruto knew. He just wanted to be a dick.

 

As the metro-bus rolled to a stop in front of his apartment complex, Naruto hopped out the doors and trudged up the stairs to his front door.

Sitting on his worn sofa, Naruto unfolded his laptop. There were seventeen tabs open, windows he had been reticent to close despite the convenience of the bookmark. It was a hoarder mentality.

The first three windows were about the Hyuuga Syndicate, the next five were about that mysterious multiple homicide at the arboretum, the following two were the Uzumaki family registry and a website offering DNA testing services respectively. The final seven were of Jiraiya.

When Naruto places his finger on the touchpad, it dawns on him: A nice apartment with solid walls and a solid ceiling. A small collection of high-end electronics. Furniture that had been new the day he arrived. A fridge that never ran out of stock. A bank account that never ran dry. And how was it that he deserved all this? A random, little wretch like him; there was a connection, wasn’t there? Somehow, he had _meant_ something to Jiraiya.

Naruto opens a new tab. He scrolls yet again for video footage of Jiraiya, desperately wanting to know this man, to understand him. To cure himself of Nagato’s invalidation.

Naruto plugs the HDMI cable into the laptop and his surroundings blur, his senses zone in on the television screen.

The talk show recording was fuzzy, the bottom edges flickering with tears and the colors unbalanced. It was dated twenty-one years ago. It was the old man’s first interview.

**“Sensei, the reception of your second book has been immense. You’ve maintained the same spot on the best-seller list for Young Adult Fantasy for eight weeks. Had you ever envisioned that your main character would become so beloved?”**

**Jiraiya looked neither like an author nor a guest prepared for their time in the spotlight. He wore 100 ryo-store slacks, an untucked satin dress shirt and an old brown leather jacket that resembled the seats inside that broke down car from Naruto’s childhood. Despite his amateur appearance, he held himself with a humble confidence. “Well, to be honest I hadn’t really expected it at all, but looking back now I should’ve hoped so; See, Musasabi Naruto is very dear me--”**

**“It’s true you were inspired by one of your sons, yes?”**

**“Yes. He told me not to talk too much about that part though, because it would embarrass him.” Jiraiya clapped his knee and bellowed with mirth. He turned to the camera and waved. “Hi, Nagato! Are you taking good care of Yahiko and Konan-chan?” He clapped his knee again and rumbled with laughter as if he could picture his beloved son’s face.**

The interview carried on, though it faded from Naruto’s mind. Just this man’s warmth towards those three sent a hot shock of envy through his heart. The happy family photos that lovingly adorned Konan’s nightstands and the hallway walls completed the whole picture in his mind. Suddenly he felt drained, cornered and unreal. He believed himself an afterthought, one who arrived too late only to find that all the seats were taken.

He reached up and rubbed the heel of his palms against his prickling eyes. Then he curled onto the couch, his body tucked against the corner and he shut his eyes.

Amongst those hoarded tabs was an address. It was to Jiraiya’s grave. Naruto wanted to go there, he wanted to see if talking to Jiraiya’s headstone would clear him of the poison that’s been plaguing him.

But something held him back.

And now, he wasn’t sure if Konan would even let him.

As Naruto drifted into a dreamless sleep, the red light of the laptop’s built-in webcam turned on.

* * *

 

Sasuke had been looking forward to tonight for the past month. Itachi had bought three tickets to an MMA event and Sasuke had immediately invited Naruto, though he had been somewhat tricky about it at first: He had forced Naruto to study from a textbook when the blonde had been too dispirited to concentrate on getting his grades up. Upon reaching the sixth chapter, the ticket had been staring right at him. The look on his face was like a little kid discovering candy for the first time. In a gust of gratitude, Naruto pushed through five more chapters on his own.

Naruto burst out the front doors of their school and landed in a fighting stance. He punched and kicked at the air, grinning with enthusiasm. “You ever seen that video where the guy kicked his opponent so hard, his shin broke in half? That fucker didn’t even feel it, huh? He went back into stance even though he had a fucking bird leg, like it was bending the wrong way. Man, it looked like rubber when he did that second kick.” Naruto shivered for good measure. The blonde had started to pick up a habit for swearing. Sasuke wasn’t particularly sure when it all started, but he chose to overlook it.

“I’ll have to look that one up. I think the most gory fight I seen was--” Sasuke stopped when Naruto had drifted out of his periphery. He took a half step back. His best friend was entranced by something. Sasuke followed his gaze beyond the courtyard, and standing just outside their school gates was a male teen, no older than they were. At least, Sasuke believed this person in a black and green suit was a boy. His face was remarkably effeminate, with long lashes, big, deep eyes and a full, curvy mouth. He wore his long brown hair parted at the center, with the other half pulled into a cloth-covered bun.

The pretty-boy waved towards the courtyard. In just seconds, Naruto had torn across the caked dirt, screaming a name in such relief it was as if he had been reunited with the dead.

“HAKU!!” Naruto launched himself at the other boy, his arms coiling desperately around the long-missed familiarity. The other boy smiled gently and patted the blonde’s head.

Sasuke drew up behind them, but kept his distance, half inhibited by his curiosity, and the other half knowing to respect their space.

“Holy shit, you really found me!” Naruto punched his friend’s shoulder. He was bouncing, laughing, and glowing, his blue eyes shone wet beneath the evening sun. “Oh man, oh man! This is fucking great! Hey, I’m free right now! What about you?”

Sasuke felt like he was watching them from the other end of a telescope, and from his view they were getting smaller and farther away. Sasuke took a step forward, he opened his mouth and the boy named Haku acknowledged him. “Naruto, what about him?”

Sasuke shoved his hands into his pockets as Naruto turned around. Yet again he opened his mouth and yet again he was unable to speak.

“Sasuke!” Naruto called out to him, and Sasuke took that as his invitation. He strode over before the door of their personal bubble closed in on him. “The match isn’t until later, right? I’m gonna catch up with Haku until then.”

Sasuke felt as though he had walked into a invisible wall as Naruto began tugging his friend down the sidewalk, brightly shining and talking the boy’s ear off.

Sasuke assumed that Haku must have been another orphan, a childhood friend that had been well-missed over the years. He ignored the ickiness writhing in his gut from Naruto flaking on him, deciding he was allotted to it and that it wouldn’t happen again.

Naruto wouldn’t show up at the arena until the final fight.

* * *

 

Naruto was over the moon. He had regaled his positive uprooting from that shit shelter of government housing and all the things he had experienced since. He had asked Haku all the things he had been dying to: What were yakuza like? Were they really like family? Was he happy? Was he going to school? What did he do for the family? Nothing? Anything?

“I kill people.”

Naruto’s cup ramen slipped from his hands and spilled on the brick beneath his feet. Noodles sloshed out, the styrofoam cracked upon impact. MSG-laden broth dribbled down his chin as he stared at his friend agape and he weakly croaked: “Is that a joke?” In a way, Haku was like Sasuke but a thousand times more elegant. Both introverts had a thing for poker-faced shock value. Sure, it’s been eight years, but Haku had been serenely dark back then just as he was now. It had to have been a joke.

Haku shook his head. “Do you remember how I made that old bulldog hate me? I kept feeding her white roses my blue drinks. I wanted to see them change colors. When they finally did, she decided to make me blue. Every day.” Haku paused, and took a moment to observe Naruto for his reactions. Curiously, the blonde remained shocked, yet Haku could find no trace of disgust in his honest face. This made him smile, not just from his lips but deep inside his heart.

Haku continued: “I tried to stab her. So she sold me. Turns out she had owed them protection money and thought ‘win-win; the Gato family could use a bloodthirsty whelp’. In the end, I couldn’t be happier. As you can see, they treat me quite well,” Haku pulled back his sleeves to bare clean, porcelain arms as opposed to the bruises from before. Then he became thoughtful. “Hm, maybe that’s a gross generalization. The oyabun is greedy trash, but Zabuza treats me very well. You saw him that day, remember?”

“I… I,I’m so confused.” Naruto laughed weakly. His gentle, elegant childhood friend… how could he be this way? Was it learnt? Was he just desensitized to it now? They put him up to it. He never asked for this, he got fucking sold like property! That lady couldn’t have been allowed to do that! You can’t throw people away!!

“That I tried to kill someone when I was six? Is that really so strange?”

Naruto’s mouth dropped open, the words lodged in his throat. Maybe it wasn’t Haku that he was confused about, but himself. He should be reviled. He should be more concerned, more frightened. But he wasn’t. He just wasn’t. All he could think about was the danger that Haku was in, and yet the relief that his friend had survived this long.

As surreality and reality collided like tectonics plates, a tsunami of fear and reverence slammed in Naruto and he threw his arms around Haku once again. He murmured ‘sorry, sorry’ over and over again into his shoulder. He was sorry for Haku’s ordeal. He was sorry for reacting uncomfortably towards his admission. He was sorry for hugging him this often because it’s just something boys shouldn’t do anymore. But there were good exceptions and bad exceptions and Haku fell somewhere in-between.

Pulling away and ducking his face, Naruto asked: “They’re bad people, right? You’re not being made to…” How was he going to justify in his mind that this was okay? That what Haku was being made to do was somehow okay and that they could be two normal friends for the rest of their lives? Haku could keep killing if it meant staying alive and Naruto… had no idea what that meant for him. Compared to his yakuza friend, Naruto was a civilian. Just an ordinary kid. Was there or wasn’t there some sort of boundary to be heeded? Was Naruto truly bad after all to be friends with someone like him?

This was Haku’s answer: “Moral relativism is a nice thing to believe in. In our world, death comes to those who deserve it.”

* * *

 

A slightly unusual trait of their school’s inner government came to Naruto and Sasuke’s attention the very afternoon of the Track and Field tryouts.

A judging table was set up to watch the runners vying for a spot on the junior high team, and rather than be judged by the captains themselves, the judges were comprised of their upperclassmen from Konoha North High.

Yakushi Kabuto in particular emanated pure trouble, from the fact that he was both a senior and the high school’s president, to his demeanor alone, the way his calculated gaze was perched menacingly atop his steepled hands. He seemed precisely the type of guy to befriend you with wisdom and a smile before sticking you in your kidney with a scalpel.

And first year junior high kids were fair game.

Naruto hadn’t even ran the hundred meter yet, but as he and the other students including Sasuke hunched down into position, he began to glisten with sweat and vibrate with nerves.

Had his growth plateaued for the time being? That’s not a thing, right? So why was everyone here larger than him? He would have to really push himself. His stride wouldn’t keep up with theirs at all.

The starting pistol popped and the runners had pushed off. They thrusted across the track with might and determination. Muscles burning, determination waning into desperation, the cool air scraping moisture from Naruto’s throat as he fought and fought against his physical limits; Naruto could feel himself slipping behind, his chest screaming at the halfway point. That scream would soon gain voice, then volume as the white line-- was crossed by Sasuke.

Naruto tripped on his face. Like a bug caught in a stampede, the other runners plodded past him. Naruto kept his head low as he growled and punched his fist into the ground.

Naruto would proceed to fumble and blunder throughout the afternoon, from the two hundred, the four hundred and the eight hundred meter dash. His endurance just wasn’t there yet. He eventually realized that he had been doing the wrong training for the past three months as well. By the end, Kabuto would request that he demonstrate his broad jumping abilities. Naruto got caught on the first hurdle and came crashing down with it tangled in his legs.

As tryouts concluded, the selection and cuts were commencing. All forty-eight hopefuls from first year to third were gathered on the ground like sweaty children waiting for storytime, or that’s what came to Naruto’s mind, as he sat hunched and out of breath at the back, resting his miserable forehead against his dirty and scraped knees.

The selections and cuts seemed about even when Kabuto decided to interrogate the best one out of all of them.

“Uchiha-san, why did you slow down during the hundred meter?”

“Well, I still came in first, didn’t I?” Hearing Sasuke be sheepish was like hearing a goat hiss. You just don’t hear those things together.

“Uh-huh. Some of you may not understand what my relevance is here, so let me explain: Konoha South and Konoha North have the largest sports program. It is also the best. As school president, I put in the time to pick the teams and I also pick the managers--”

A first year interrupted, Naruto didn’t recognize the voice, so he must have been from another class. “Wait, you’re judging every team for the next ten days?!”

“I am simply ensuring that we are unbeatable across the city,” Kabuto answered as he pushed his glasses up. He redirected his attention back to Sasuke. “Uchiha-san, I would like to welcome you to the track team, but I get the feeling you aren’t much of a team player.”

“Because?”

“Because you chose to slow down.”

“He tripped.” Sasuke’s admission caused Naruto to squirm and his face to burn. Yeah, he tripped twice. Who slows down for a klutz, anyways? Naruto was in agreement with where Kabuto was coming from: Sasuke’s priorities were skewed.

“And that’s holding you back. Do you really want to be on a team? Or are you doing this just because he is?”

Naruto lifted his head and watched for Sasuke’s response. Naruto began to wonder if Sasuke just saw him a charity case or if Sasuke really wanted to do whatever he wanted to do. It was cool at first, in fact, it was wonderful. But that’s when Naruto didn’t have any friends, when he didn’t know how to get someone to hang out with him and how to earn their interest. Somehow he did with Sasuke and that was cool, but some things were cropping up that Naruto hadn’t noticed before and they were beginning to bother him. Sasuke was like a blank slate. Naruto wasn’t sure if he was passionate about anything, he seemed like he was just along for the ride.

“... He is my teammate. I don’t really know what else to say.”

And there it was. A vague, impersonal answer. Sure, it made Naruto feel good about himself knowing that Sasuke regarded him so well, but it also put him off, because this was sports. This shit has to be all or nothing.

“No, he isn’t.” Kabuto hammered the final nail in his decision. Naruto already knew he wouldn’t be accepted, but now he finally heard it.

* * *

 

Sasuke, in the back of his mind, sometimes wondered if he was good at running because of the nightmares. Itachi used to tell him that he had night terrors since he was very small, about three or four. Then one day when he was six, they just stopped.

For the nightmares to end when he turned six seemed arbitrary, and yet the day that a small boy the color and disposition of sunshine had approached him only to fall on his face, Sasuke had slept well later that night. That boy wouldn’t talk to him again until they were eight, and they wouldn’t be best friends until they were eleven.

Sasuke hadn’t had a single nightmare for six years, but then that field trip fucked with him.

Five years ago Itachi couldn’t stand to live under their parents home anymore, for what reason both parties had kept from the younger Uchiha. Sasuke hadn't pried once. He hadn't the curiosity, for some reason.

Shortly before sundown, Sasuke arrived at his parent’s house intent on speaking with his father. Or rummaging through his study if the old man wasn’t here.

As Sasuke turned the knob and carefully pushed the door open, he was startled to witness the sheer pile-up inside, from the stacks of files from end to end of the old wooden bureau, to the partially hidden suspect map just above it. Even the floor was a minefield of acquired evidence tucked away in accordion folders and novella-length personal files. The wastebin was overflowing with fast food wrappers and disposable bento boxes.

_Where’s mom? Did she step out on Dad, too?_

Sasuke made his own mental file to complete on another day: Look for mom and see if she won’t go back to dad.

A small flicker of orange light peeked out from under a stack of files and Sasuke reasoned that it was his father’s laptop. He wove over the mines and crossed the threshold, making it up to the bureau. He grabbed the stacks and lifted them away, then placed them carefully beside his feet. He opened the laptop and was met with a predictable obstacle: What was the PIN to dad’s laptop?

“Damn…” Sasuke muttered, before typing through all the basics. Dad’s birthday? No. Mom’s? No. Itachi’s? No. His? Nope. Anniversary? Which one? Wedding? Nope. A passing? Sasuke tried the day that Shishui died. That didn’t work either. Sasuke almost palmed his forehead when he decided to try the month and day of The Nines Incident: 1010.

The laptop screen flashed and Sasuke was in. He could only assume that he may have to decrypt some of his files as well.

Was this why he was here? Snooping through city files? He just wanted to ask his dad about his nightmares, but he had no idea when he was going to return.

 _There’s a SD card in the port._ Sasuke clicked on the drive and fear rammed his heart to the wall. It was a video file and the same masked man from the arboretum was staring right through him from the preview image. A harsh light was shone upon his blurry figure, and behind him was a woman. He couldn’t see all of her, just part of a green apron dress covered in blood, some red hair and her arm raised above her head. The background was dark and difficult to discern, but it was likely the base of that giant, dead vine where they found the bodies.

Sasuke’s finger hovered over the touchpad. He ignored the bile churning to rise up his throat as he clicked the video file.

 **A feminine scream ripped through the speakers, heavy with sobbing, pained groans and panicked pleading.** The door slammed behind Sasuke, startling him out of his skin. He turned around. His father was red in the face.

“SASUKE! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” Fugaku, in his pressed suit and trenchcoat, stumbled over the threshold, fists cocked at his sides, ready to beat some sense into his nosy youngest.

 _Shitshitshit, I’m dead, I’m dead!_ Sasuke flipped his attention back to the laptop, intending to stop the horror show when the color of sunshine caught his eye beside the mortally abused young woman.

Sasuke cupped his mouth and sank to the floor. The stern retribution of his father’s hand was the furthest thing from his mind as he puked on the dusty hardwood beneath the bureau.

Without a doubt, he had just seen Naruto’s parents.


	2. Prologue, Part 2

Sasuke's childhood home little resembled what it did three years ago before he'd been passed into Itachi's care. Only now, as he sat at the edge of their old leather sofa with his head heavy in his hands, did he fully realize the details.

Used dishes piled in the kitchen sink behind the den where they sat, two tied trash bags forgotten beside the trashcan which was also filled to capacity and waiting to be thrown out. The low dining table to their right had become a secondary study for his father, as opposed to a place where family gathered to eat and bond together. More personal files, more evidence photos and more balled up fast food wrappers littered the wooden surface, obscuring the furniture almost entirely from view.

The antique zataku table was gone, charcoal-stained with the bamboo branches carved along the edge, leaving nothing between him and his solemn father. There had been matching nightstands as well. The traces of his mother's existence in her decorative touches to their home, from the sumi-e scrolls along the walls, the tall brown vases with their cattails and reeds, and the tryptic glass photos of a forest unique to her childhood with the crepuscular sun rays shining down over a leaf-trodden path, were completely absent. Things like these he only recalled now that they were missing.

It was an effective distraction from the evil he had seen, but it was hardly a pleasant one.

"What are you doing here, Sasuke?" Fugaku's voice rumbled over the sickened silence.

It churned the youngest Uchiha's stomach to utter a word. "... just wanted to see you… I think. I don't-" Sasuke silenced himself, pausing to grind his palms against his eyelids and gather his thoughts behind the veil of darkness. "Was that video from-"

"October Tenth, yes."

The bad day. Naruto's birthday.  _And that woman had been…_  Sasuke squeezed his eyes further shut as he shook his head. What he had seen usually came out of a splatter film, or worse, the Dark Web. Maybe that's where it was pulled from. And his father had it. He had it this whole time. "How… often do you watch it?"

"Why?"

"I don't know, I just… don't think I could sit through that more than once." Sasuke's fingers felt like ice against his forehead, his hands wouldn't stop trembling.

Fugaku crossed his arms and leaned back in his old recliner. He grunted. "You know better than to touch police property, Sasuke, let alone view it. That said, you have seen that video once before already."

Sasuke's eyes opened, his hands lowered from his face and he gazed up at his father like Fugaku was about to tell him some long-hidden family secrets. But then he understood on his own. The nightmares. "When I was younger?"

"Yes. Your older brother never did forgive me. He claimed it was a form of child abuse," Fugaku smirked at the notion and shrugged it off, like water off a duck's back. Then he sighed, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. "I tire of all this… mollycoddling going around these days. I wanted you two to be strong in every sense. But I see how that's turned out."

The floor drew Sasuke's eyes away from his father, as his face slowly filled with pulsing heat. In the tension, with his hands tightly cupped together, Sasuke began to dig his right thumbnail into his left hand.

Fugaku spoke up. "How's junior high going?"

That threw Sasuke off, such a dissonantly casual change of subject, his initial reaction was to shrug as the words fumbled out his mouth. "My grades are fine as always… I'm class rep with my- I've got a- I mean," He almost told him about Sakura-chan, but his waffling and stammering was earning him a dirty glare from his father and he knew better. Fugaku was 'all work and no play'. He wouldn't care about his relationships, so he quickly worked through what was superfluous and what was relevant to his father's interests.  _Bukatsu_. That was a good place to start. "I got on the Track  & Field team the other day-"

Fugaku snorted, unimpressed. "Running around in circles. You should be building up your mind. Join an academic circle, will you? Your brother was in three."

The heat in Sasuke's face pulsed harder, and he dimly wondered if his father had always been this way. He had doted on Itachi before, yes, up until a point - and even then Sasuke had little to recall when all that had stopped and why - but maybe the absence of his love, his wife, was making him this way. Hard to please and cynical.

Sasuke was more motivated now than before to seek out his wayward mother. Pushing past the shame that throbbed in his cheeks, Sasuke replied: "I know."

Part of the reason Sasuke joined his brother so late was because Itachi had been busier in junior high than he was going to be in high school. The former golden child had kept up with top grades, student council, Speech & Debate, Model Allied Nations (which Fugaku never cared for), and History Club. And now, beneath the caustic scrutiny of his detective father, Sasuke caved in. "Which one should I do instead?"

"'Instead'? Can't you do more than one  _bukatsu_  at a time?" It was like his father was egging him on. Do this or you're not a man. Do this or you're not my son. Don't be a disappointment like that soft Itachi.

"I can." Sasuke felt like he had just agreed to a contract that he hadn't read all the way through.

"Good," Fugaku leaned heavily against the left armrest, his fore and middle fingers pressed hard against his temple as he considered the words that were in his heart. "You're not as smart as Itachi, but I expect you to beat him at everything he's ever done. You're my second chance, alright?"

The sun sank down behind the merlot maple trees in their garden, and it stretched Sasuke's shadow to three times his size. When he was little and the family went on walks together, Sasuke would watch the ground roll beneath his feet as he held his brother's hand, and he remembered how Itachi's shadow always towered over his. At the time, he was impressed by their differences, having strongly adored his older brother and the kind smile that Itachi reserved just for him.

But now all of it seemed like a trap.

* * *

The ten day event of physical tryouts had come and gone two weeks ago, and Naruto's dejection had faded into half-hearted moping over the course of that time.

Upon completion of their cleaning duties, he and Sasuke had wandered in on the junior kickboxing team's training session, both listless and preoccupied in their own way, as if they each had their own boulder to push uphill.

The match concluded, and the teammates stepped out of the ring. Another spar was scheduled and one of the team members, an upperclassman, had arrived late. The heavy double doors slammed open and he sprinted up to the ring, pulling his muscle shirt up over his head and dropping it to the ground. He had an uncool bowl cut that covered his ears and eyebrows like chalkboard erasers. His eyes were funny, round and earnest, with long bottom lashes. He seemed perpetually wide-eyed, as if he was soaking in life itself just by looking at it. He wore a green and white satin boxer with an orange waistband. Despite his goofy looks, he was sinewy and powerfully built for a fourteen year old.

Sasuke reclined on the bench and crossed his arms in immense disinterest, not for the sport, but for that particular upperclassman. It was either that or admit to himself the discomfort he harbored towards him.

"Aw man, lookit that guy! What a fucking dork, huh, Sasuke? It's like he's trying to emulate Might Guy!" Naruto clutched his stomach and laughed.

"You think?" His softly uttered sarcasm went over Naruto's head. Sasuke shifted his gaze to his best friend as Naruto sat forward, elbows on his knees, his flat eyes darting with the flow of the opponents' swift and decisive movements. It was too late to leave. Amateurs or not, Naruto was always ready to soak in a good match. And Sasuke knew, to his chagrin, that this was going to be a very good match.

Rock Lee was just toying with the other guy, getting a feel for his rhythm, his openings. And then Lee finally opened the first gate on the poor amateur.

Naruto shot up to his feet, electrified by what he was seeing in the ring. "Holy shit he's fast!" His blue eyes, having been dull for these past two weeks, now sparkled in amazement.

Sasuke was seeing something in his friend that he'd grown all too familiar with, enough to spot it minutes ahead of its full manifestation: Naruto had been slapped in the face with inspiration and he would be chasing it down shortly. Rather than experience relief and a sense of gladness for him, the blonde's ability to bounce between goals with such energy and unconditional enthusiasm only added to Sasuke's niggling discomfort that they were changing as people, and possibly friends.

Naruto cupped his mouth. "YEAH! BUSHY BROWS! YOU'RE AWESOME!"

The spar predictably concluded with Rock Lee victorious. The hot-blooded teen cheered as he punched his gloved fists into the air.

The double doors opened yet again, and three girls entered the primary gymnasium. One of them Sasuke only recognized as an upperclassman from Ino's dance club. She had dark brown hair that was pulled into double buns and a bandaid across her nose. With her were Ino and Sakura.

Sakura's eyes flitted in their direction, her curiosity and longing hidden beneath icy detachment, but Sasuke could see it all. He waved at her, and she blinked, then hesitated before waving back.

Sasuke retreated the gesture as she returned her attention to Ino and the other girl. Sakura's been doing this a lot lately. Looking in his direction and spacing out. He was beginning to suspect that she wasn't looking at him at all, let alone looking for him.

"Be right back." Naruto sprinted up to the ring, overflowing with the 'Springtime of Youth', as he threw himself emphatically to the ground, begging Bushy Brows to train him personally. The young man, quickly admiring the blonde's enthusiasm and finding a kindred spirit in him, wholeheartedly agreed.

A soft and pleasant smile had worked its way on Sakura's lips, her gaze lingering on the display of boyish camaraderie.

Sasuke would wait forty minutes before realizing that he had dropped off of Naruto's radar, and five more minutes before he bounced his knuckles across the idiot's head.

* * *

"So when do I get hang out with you and Haku?" Sasuke popped out of the blue as they wandered by arcades and milk tea cafes. Sasuke was surprised to see his best friend reel his head back like he had heard an obscene story. "What?"

Naruto regained composure and crossed his arms, glaring at the sidewalk like he had a heavy decision to make. In a way he did. Haku had been surrounded by tough, older men for the past seven, eight years. He hasn't had a friend since then, and Naruto knew that with their history together, their common pain, that Haku was the most comfortable with him by default. But maybe Haku deserved to expand his social circle, to not be suffocated by the life of an outcast. Making his decision, Naruto nodded to himself. "I'll be sure to ask him."

* * *

"You're really on your way to getting stronger," Haku commented as he and Naruto strolled through a linear park a mile down from the Gato Family headquarters. Haku turned to Naruto and smiled with the soft tilt of his head. "That's wonderful news."

Naruto rubbed at the back of head, biting back the warm embarrassment that danced in his chest. Indeed, Rock Lee was doing him a huge solid by including him in his professional training with Might Guy. Naruto had been anxious at first, a little intimidated, but the boisterous and optimistic man had smoothed over his fears with a thumbs up and a bleach-white smile. He laughed when Lee had mimicked him immediately after. He didn't understand how two objectively lame dudes could be so cool. "Still may never be as strong at you, though."

"You'll be at your strongest when you have someone to protect," Haku gazed forward at their path, then lifted his gaze to the speckling of stars above them. "Have you anyone in mind, I wonder?"

Most of their time together has been spent like this. Endless talks, deep from the heart, with the mind turned inside out, to allow the things hiding in corners of darkness to be exposed and laid bare. Haku may as well have lived six lifetimes. He had such a brutal childhood, and the most unusual upbringing, and Naruto never ran out of things he learned from him.

"Yeah, I do… I just… wish I were good enough already." Naruto frowned, the tips of his shoes pulling down his gaze. His goddamn size five shoes, when Sasuke and Lee were size sevens. He was the smallest boy in all of first year. Doubts of his growth had seeped into his brain these past few weeks, rendering him with concern that he was in fact useless.

Haku dismissed the urge to reassure him. He knew better than to invalidate his doubts with empty remarks. As long as his self-doubt didn't cause him to freeze up, Haku believed doubt to be intrinsic to self-improvement.

Naruto spoke up. "Hey, lemme ask you something…"

"Hm?"

"What do you suppose the daughter of a Kumicho is like?"

Haku turned his head and stifled his giggles with the bite of his lip.  _Adorable. How unexpected._  There were a handful of Yakuza daughters in the city, now he truly wondered who Naruto had in mind. Calming himself back down, he began to answer. "Well, Yakuza lead highly organized, luxurious lifestyles. Therefore, a daughter like that would very likely think herself a princess, and may act in such a manner. I'd have to say that you would have very little chance grabbing one's attention."

"So 'spoiled', huh?"

"Yeah."

Naruto's footsteps slowed as his thoughts weighed down on him like tethered anchors. Far as he knew, Hinata did not get to enjoy such a cushy childhood. Wherever she was, whatever sort of life she has been living, her personality has surely been affected. In the end, just finding her was enough for him, to return her to her family, to make she sure she was somewhere safe.

Naruto eyed Haku with furtive glances, wondering if he had warmed up to the idea of hanging out with him and Sasuke. Naruto had quickly changed the subject upon first approach after noticing how uncomfortably and unconfident Haku had reacted to the idea. Even now he seemed more interested in pretending he had never been asked. "Haku…"

Rapid pops echoed throughout the park like firecrackers. Naruto's heart caught in his throat as he took a step back.

"Where'd that come from?" He whispered, eyes wide, his palms growing clammy. "Those noises, those were way too close together, right?"

Haku snatched his upper arm and dragged him off the path. They hopped over the shrubbery and ducked behind an old Zelkova tree. Naruto sank himself down, until he was almost one with the dirt.

And that's when Naruto finally saw Haku of the Gato Family. Haku's eyes were hardened yet clear as he reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a modern  _Sugiura_  pistol.

"Haku." A low and surly voice emanated from above them.

Naruto clapped his hands to his mouth, his cheeks hummed with a poorly contained scream. His blue eyes rolled up to the left and there, ducked behind the tree as Haku was, stood Momochi Zabuza.

Naruto scarcely recognized the model of handgun that Zabuza wielded but it was matte black, bulky, with solid lines and angles. It looked either straight out of a cyberpunk anime or like it belonged at the arcade.

Just then, for a mere second, the gunslinger from that movie popped into his mind and melded with the Yakuza merc before him. Suddenly he felt the gleeful relief of being in the presence of a badass, of being protected by one.

"How reckless, huh, Zabuza?" Haku chided, as a cacophony of angry young men arguing amongst each other replaced the comforting silence of the once empty park.

"Try to find a way to escape with your friend." He ordered before slipping away through the shadows, creeping ever closer on the source of disruption.

Naruto was mesmerized.  _So cool._

Haku grabbed Naruto's shoulder and pulled him to his feet. "Go," He whispered. "Stay in the shadows."

Blood thumped in Naruto's ears and neck, his breath hastened and halted as his thoughts jumped the gamut, between fright and excitement.

Had it been drug deal gone bad? A failed intimidation bluff? Drunken belligerence with a handgun? Maybe some idiots were just shooting up in the air?

"What happens if someone innocent is dead?" The blonde whispered.

"Sadly, that's not our problem. Don't talk, okay?"

Naruto heavily swallowed his questions and focused on reaching the end of the park.

When they finally did, it wouldn't be another hour till Zabuza rejoined them outside the Gato compound. He countenance was severe, his eyes pinched in disgust.

Naruto turned towards the man, his body thrumming with morbid curiosity. "What happened?"

Zabuza sighed and reached for the cigarette carton tucked in his dress shirt front pocket. "Haku, we have to report to the Kumicho," Zabuza flicked his lighter to life and the tip of cigarette glowed a fierce orange. Zabuza turned his attention to the small blonde, his bright blue eyes boring through him like a demanding pup. "What's your name again?"

"Naruto."

"Naruto, this matter does not concern you-"

"Zabuza." Haku pulled the man's gaze and stared meaningfully into his eyes. Then Haku repeatedly flicked his eyes in Naruto's direction as if telling Zabuza: 'It's okay. What's the harm?'. After all, Naruto prioritized half of his free time towards Haku alone. He did not judge the activities of Yakuza, nor did he share the same mentality as society towards their outlaw status; a nebulous spectrum of begrudging acceptance and deep-seated spite.

Zabuza's nostrils flared in annoyance before his eyes closed. "The Kumicho comes first. Come on." With that, Zabuza pinched his cigarette between his fingers, tossed it to the ground and stamped it out beneath his dress shoe, before brushing past and disappearing through the front gate.

An unusually impish grin split Haku's face as he turned towards Naruto.

"Was that a 'yes'?" Naruto laughed in confusion.

"It wasn't a 'no'."

The gleam of victory on Haku's face made Naruto's chest swell, and his heart race like he had one too many energy drinks. The excitement of being included caused his own mouth to twist in a crooked grin.

Haku waved him goodbye and disappeared inside.

Several minutes passed when Naruto realized that Haku needed more time being pulled away from his role in the Gato family. The way he had been elated to include Naruto in his life just now… Naruto knew it shouldn't have to be this way. Haku should  _want_  to meet other kids. Naruto reasoned further that he had to convince him.

* * *

The day Hinata had been abducted, it seemed as though a black hole the size of a pinhole had been poked through the heart of their Kumicho.

On the surface he had planned press conferences, to plea and bargain for his precious first born's safe return - but when his top  _Wakagashira_  reported back from his dogged search, having intercepted the fleeing chauffeur Kou at the airport, the black hole had grown too large too quickly, and he had collapsed from an acute heart attack. Yet, hospitalization had not stopped him from joining that interrogation room.

What happened eight years ago with Kou was kept within the family, lest their rivals exploit their personal suffering or compromise their search for the lost heiress. The traitorous fool, upon the agony of senbon driven into eight of his fingers, had finally confessed to his ongoing affair with Hiashi's wife, that she had wanted to be free of the cage of the Hyuuga-gumi and had wanted Hinata to be free with her. Kou had been convinced to let a strange man that Hiashi's wife had hired to take Hinata away, to stage it as a kidnapping, and that Kou would meet up with them in Kaminari no Kuni. Kou had been thoroughly convinced by the adulteress' pain, had been ready to be a real father to Hinata.

Two more senbon had not given them the information needed to find Hinata and her mother. Three senbon into his toes had only sent him into shock and the pathetic sight of a young man foaming at the mouth and babbling over a love he could never have had caused Hiashi to raise his gun at his head in bitter rage, before aiming and shooting dead the subordinate who had been administering the torture. Kou had passed away minutes later by a poison-tipped senbon, just as their Kumicho had suspected.

Neji followed closely behind Natsu, as she aided Hiashi down the hall towards the main room.

It twisted Neji's heart to still see his uncle this way. He had grown frail these past eight years. He coughed and winced regularly. His cheeks had hollowed into his face, and he had grown so thin that his veins bulged along his forearm and hands, resembling a sixty year old man.

The sliding doors opened up at their arrival, and they stepped into the lantern lit main room. The low table was surrounded by their  _kanbu_ , most of whom enjoyed sleek black modern suits while others had arrived in their civvies; sandals, cotton joggers and button down shirts. Those who were of Hyuuga blood honored their noble ancestors, wearing their ornate ecru yukata, just as Hiashi, Hizashi and Neji were dressed in theirs.

Natsu eased Hiashi beside his twin brother at the head of the low table, and Neji took his seat beside his father. The air was still like a held breath as they awaited to hear from acting Kumicho, Hizashi.

"One of Gato's  _kobun_  has been critically wounded tonight. The four men witnessed have escaped by way of an ultranationalists black van." Hizashi paused as his subordinates soaked that in. He waited for their confusion and murmurs to pass. "Yes, it's too early to be sure if this is a ploy or if Gato is to be plagued by in-fighting in the days to come. I will reach out to the other family heads so that we may avoid needlessly spilling the blood of citizens."

"Hizashi," Hiashi's voice was sandpapery, as though it was being dragged over sharp gravel. "Gato has been doing his damnedest to get inside Danzo's pocket for years now, but that jingoist is the real deal; He wants  _nothing_  to do with our kind. If Gato's men have been pushing too hard, this may have been a message."

If Danzo becomes the new party leader of the extreme right, it was in Gato's best interest to win his favor lest Danzo cut off all ties Gato already had with that political group.

"Surely Danzo is not above getting his hands dirty. It must be arrogance that has convinced him he can win the party without any effort than his own." commented a  _wakagashira_  in his civilian clothes.

Hizashi mulled solemnly over their points provided before coming to a conclusion that no one was going to like. "It may have to be us to pursue relations with Shimura Danzo."

* * *

Naruto had always been a firm believer of hard work. He was the sort of person who was addicted to accomplishment. Easy things sucked. He wanted nothing to do with cheaters and slackers, as if he was allergic to very notion of them.

Lee felt the exact same way, and Naruto had been enthralled in his newfound brotherhood with an upperclassman he practically just met. It would be on this particular day that their shared beliefs would be validated, that they knew for sure they were both walking the right path.

Naruto thrust his fists forward, his mind screaming  _Aim faster, faster!_ as Lee dipped and dove every shot.

More than five dozen eyes were on him, from the judo team to the kendo team. They were in awe to watch him move wearing Lee's signature arm and leg weights. It's been five weeks and they all thought he would have given up by day three, but nope. The small blonde was drenched in sweat, he breathed like he had a fire to fuel, and his eyes glimmered with predatory determination.

Naruto's mind was like a flipbook turning at lightning speed as he scrambled to apply technique into practice. Lee smirked at Naruto's sheer concentration, like he had become an entirely different person. The effervescent, spontaneous blonde did indeed have a no-nonsense side, one that gritted its teeth and glowered darkly like he had something to prove. Yet, a calculating individual he was not, and Lee could see the gears groaning working overtime. Naruto needed to trust himself, trust his gut, which is exactly where Lee needed to aim. And he did.

The gym bubbled with surprised laughter and empathetic groans as Naruto collapsed on his side, wheezing for air. Lee crouched down and offered a hand. Naruto grasped his hand and let the upperclassman haul him back to his feet.

Lee grinned and clapped his back. "Alright, I think you really need to keep strengthening your core. So I want ten reps of twenty 'windshield wipers'. Two minutes rest in between."

Naruto found he wasn't a fan of exercising in front of others. Some techniques like the one Lee wanted him to do just looked absolutely stupid if you were the only one doing them. Luckily the gymnastics team had concluded an hour ago, leaving their parallel bars in the far corner free to use. He made his way over and hopped to grasp the shortest bar. He grit his teeth as he swung his leaden legs up so that his toes lined up with the bar. Then he began to swing his legs side to side, counting as he completed rep after rep. Already his arms were shaking but he kept his mind on his form.

More than an hour later, Naruto would be collapsed beneath the parallel bars, gasping for breath but feeling fulfilled in completing Lee's ironman style regiment.

A shadow blocked out the fluorescent glare bearing down on Naruto, and he squinted up at Lee. He hung onto the parallel bar, his expression pregnant with questions.

"Sup?" Naruto exhaled.

"I've been thinking about Haruno-san again."

Naruto chuckled and closed his eyes. "I told you, she's with Sasuke," Naruto paused upon witnessing Lee's unchanged expression. Naruto's first impression was that he was unconvinced, his second was that maybe Lee didn't care. "What, you don't think so?"

"It's honestly not apparent to me, no."

Naruto sat up, feeling like he was made of jelly with kettlebells for hands and feet. "They're just on the down-low, man. Maybe they're trying to be professional because they're both class reps,"  _Not like Scar Face gave us much of a choice._ Naruto shrugged before fixing Lee with a serious look. "Trust me, they're together."

"I haven't heard it from her, though. Does that mean I have a chance?"

Naruto squinted at Lee as if that would help him see the persistent casanova a little better. Why would Sakura not tell Lee straight up about Sasuke? Was that her idea of being respectful to Lee's feelings?  _Oh shit, if Sasuke has a rivalry with THIS guy…_  Naruto bit down on his snickering as his dormant mischievous streak sparked to life. Part of him was dying to see this play out, to see how the perfect-in-every way Sasuke reacted to a threat, and to see this dorky gentleman before him become that very threat.  _This is fuckin' weird, and way too funny._

Naruto caved. He was doing this. He had no doubts Sakura would stick to Sasuke to the very end anyways, and Naruto was ready to let Lee know that he could easily get a girlfriend despite his weird looks. "How does Sakura act around him?"

"Cold, awkward, embarrassed."

"Of him!?"  _Damn, that's an effective fake out if Lee thinks Sakura hates Sasuke like that. She's got some amazing control._  Unlike not long before. Well, now it was Naruto's turn to cement his scheme: "Do what you want," Naruto shrugged. "If she ain't happy, go make her happy."

"Really?!" Lee beamed at him like a searchlight. He released the parallel bar and pumped his arms giddily, his cheeks were bright pink. "Yosh! Alright, c'mon! No more slacking! Let's get back to work!"

* * *

Lee hunched down, bouncing rhythmically on the balls of his feet, as he took Naruto's punches with padded mitts over his hands. Naruto ran through the routine: One-two, one-two, swing with a kick, one-two, one-two, swing and kick.

"C'mon, Uzumaki! You can do better than that!"

Naruto flapped his left hand before drawing it back. He

pivoted on his right foot, his left arm cocked at a ninety-degree angle before swinging the punch with the momentum in his back and hips, his left leg turning inwards with the swing.

Lee staggered from the contact, and their attention was drawn away by a slow clap.

Naruto turned as Kabuto approached them, his heart racing more out of nervousness than exertion.

"I like that left hook. Naruto, when was the last time you weighed yourself?"

"Eh?" Naruto floundered through his memory before recalling the school physical four months ago. "E,Eighty-eight pounds, last I checked, senpai."

Kabuto gripped his chin. "Hm… No, that won't do. Are you eating enough?"

It seemed as though the gears in Naruto's brain groaned to a halt. Was Kabuto showing interest in him? "Well, I can eat about twelve bowls of ramen in one sitting, but I guess I might forget dinner sometimes. And breakfast."

Kabuto turned towards Lee. "I want you to find a diet for him, get him to at  _least_  a hundred-eighteen pounds by next year, alright?"

Lee snapped to salute. "Yessir!"

As Kabuto walked away, the gears in Naruto's brain started up again in overdrive. His mouth hung open and his head flipped left to right, left to right, Lee's grin increasing every time Naruto looked back at him. "Am… Am I in?"

Lee thrust his mitt-covered right hand, in what Naruto was sure was supposed to be a thumbs up, and his teeth sparkled. "Rely on me, young Uzumaki! I guarantee you a spot on the team next year!"

In Naruto's excitement he pummeled the left mitt in swift succession, his soft, incredulous chuckles tumbling into booming laughter. He was overcome with a manic sort of euphoria, one he hadn't felt in a while, one that he would continue to seek and fight for.

* * *

Sasuke thought he should be used to it by now, how every year for the past three, for one day alone, he found himself wandering room to room only to discover no sound, no heartbeat, no hello's.

It was the fourth anniversary of Shisui's death, and Itachi was preoccupied at a friendly gathering dedicated to Shisui's memory, comprised of former clubmates and those who had also been closest to the deceased teen.

He had been Itachi's senpai in junior high, had been in Model Allied Nations for that one year together before Shisui moved onto high school, yet they had remained tight friends despite the loss of aligned schedules; Something Sasuke was beginning to grapple with between Naruto's hyperfocus on kickboxing to Sakura's inexplicable, almost indiscernible distance as of late.

He reasoned that her guilt towards hiding and lying to her mother had been eating her up, causing her to turn away from him. He allowed her space, but could feel microscopic seeds of resentment begin to plant themselves whenever she smiled in Lee's presence.

It bothered him that these two could slip away from him so easily when there was nothing to keep them apart in the first place. It had bothered him as a child when Itachi had always promised to spend time with him, only to constantly flake on him saying 'next time' and poking his damn forehead like he were an inconsequential brat, because Sasuke knew better - Itachi had better places to be than with his kid brother.

And now, even in death, Shisui still had this strong a hold on his brother than he ever could.

There was nothing to occupy Sasuke away from his thoughts. Being alone was like having a sit down with his shadow and getting trapped in a circular conversation with his inner darkness.

But he didn't really want to distract himself with bullshit anyways. He wanted to understand his hurt so he could find a solution to it. He was critical of Itachi for choosing such a sentimental way of dealing with his pain, and yet it proved the vital jumping point for Sasuke's train of logic.

Itachi lost Shisui to suicide. The older teen had gotten in over his head. He chased down a dangerous path and paid the price. To be driven to suicide only proved his guilt that he had become a let down to himself and his peers.

If Sasuke knew his best friend was heading down a dangerous path, he would either stop it from getting that far or stop being friends with them altogether. To avoid that kind of hurt, the choice was obvious.

And just the other day, Haku had stopped by their school gates once again, and Sasuke had discovered something very troubling about him.

* * *

Haku sat curled on the sofa, pensive as he fought against an anxiety he never knew he had. When Zabuza sat down beside him, he peered up shyly at the man. "Do you think I should go?"

Naruto had been persistently though patiently asking him to hang out with him and his other best friend for the past week. He never thought about hanging out with other kids, hadn't the desire to. Back at the orphanage, he had earned a big brother role amongst those weaker and younger than himself. It was as if he had ten smaller Naruto's to look after, and that was just fine with him.

But in this situation, Haku would not be in control. He would be dragged into a normalcy that he did not understand.

He had watched his father murder his mother out of prejudice towards her kind when he was four years old, had nearly died himself when that man turned the knife on him. Luckily the screams had long alerted their neighbors, causing the police to barge in through the front door. The bang of a gun had left his little ears ringing, and Haku had watched how a slimy, crimson hole had formed in the center of his father's forehead before he collapsed face first into his own blood.

He never had a normal day in his life. He had no idea who he really was and was too scared to find out. What if they became disappointed with him? What if Naruto suddenly left him?

Zabuza gripped Haku's shoulder and gently squeezed, his beady eyes pinched while his mask hid his bittersweet smile. That's when Haku realized his cheeks were sticky with thin tear trails.

He quickly reached up and wiped them away, breaking eye contact with the man he had grown unexpectedly close to.

"You know this isn't the life I wish for you," Zabuza began, his voice hushed. "You're a  _good_  kid, Haku."

Haku mutely nodded, still petrified of what he was getting himself into.

* * *

Naruto had to force himself not to hug-tackle Haku the moment he saw him as he grinned and waved at him instead. He distantly questioned why part of him seemed to be wired for such girlish behavior before shrugging it off shortly after. Maybe it wasn't necessarily a 'girly' thing, but something he just did towards those most precious to him. He imagined if he had parents or a beloved sibling, he would run into their arms too.

Sasuke sauntered close behind, hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed.

Haku fidgeted in his civilian attire, a combination of sandals, black harem pants and Zabuza's old jogging hoodie with the sleeves cut off when all his own shirts had rendered him still too androgynous for his liking. He had never felt self-conscious before over something so trivial, but knowing he was going to spend time with boys his age had brought those unseen insecurities to light. He knew he had to fit in somehow.

Haku didn't like Sasuke's detached yet piercing gaze, as if he were a specimen on a petri dish. Yet he did his best to smile as he sent them a small wave.

Naruto's eyes were brimming bright with excitement, he was almost bouncing on the balls of his feet. "You ready for some awesomeness, Haku?!"

Haku tilted his head as his smile stiffened around the edges. "Of course."

* * *

Haku trailed behind as Naruto and Sasuke argued over where to eat. Naruto, predictably, wanted ramen. He often commented how none of the ramen bars he visited thus far compared to Ichiraku's and had sounded both nostalgic and conflicted about venturing back to their old, neglected suburb just for a taste. Sasuke demanded they find a  _famiresu_  because he wanted musubi, and Naruto had teased him, telling him to go to a convenience store and get some 'crappy' musubi if he wanted it so bad.

Theirs was a dynamic he had only rarely witnessed before amongst the trainees, the high school dropouts who were often left doing menial jobs, such as assisting their many  _shuhensha_. It was a dynamic entirely unlike that of the harmony he shared with Naruto.  _Is this what normal is?_  Haku began to doubt himself. Perhaps he and Naruto got along  _too_  well. Perhaps, Haku was just too agreeable, too blank.

In the end, they wound up at an  _okonomiyaki_  restaurant. Haku had picked at his food, feeling out of place under Sasuke's analytical gaze. Often he had wondered if the day that he got caught by police, would an interrogation feel just like this? Then, finally the Uchiha spoke, and it seemed as though Haku was unable to escape his suspicion that Sasuke had been trying to figure him out since. "So where do you go to school, Haku?"

Naruto sputtered, chewed bits of fried cabbage spewing from his lips. Haku stifled a giggle.

Naruto slammed a fist on the table, rattling their drinks. "Dude, I told you no questions! Fuckin' asshole!"

Sasuke glared lightly at the blonde. "You've gotten way too use to talking like a punk. Anyways, I didn't think you were serious."

Naruto flipped Sasuke the bird before replying: "No questions means no questions."

Sasuke sighed wearily. "I don't understand you. How are we supposed to talk then?"

The morbid Uchiha was right, and Haku wanted to give normal a chance. "Naruto, I can choose what I want to answer. It's fine."

Sasuke gestured at Haku while giving Naruto a stern, wide-eyed look like he was saying: 'See?!'

Naruto rolled his eyes and sank back against the booth.

"I'm homeschooled." Haku answered honestly. It wasn't just because he was yakuza, that he was the protege to a hitman that he could not get a formal education, but that Gato had explicitly forbid it. He felt he could control him better if he could keep him 'stupid'. Zabuza did his best to match Haku in street smarts with book smarts, as if he had a future to look forward to. Zabuza probably had no idea how helpless Haku felt the more books he read, the more things he learned. Sometimes he wished he was stupid.

Sasuke nodded, and it seemed as though he dropped the follow up questions he had prepared.

* * *

Naruto had asked Haku if he wanted to go see a movie, but the older boy declined. The idea of being trapped in a large, dark room chilled him. The thought that he could be recognized and targeted by the same men who attacked one of their  _kobun_  made him feel even worse.

Eventually they found their way to a five story arcade, each level specializing in different genre of games, from cabinets to consoles, from crane games to card tables.

Sasuke nudged Naruto with his elbow. "Bet I could beat you at this." Sasuke referred to the post-apocalyptic first-person shooter in front of them.

Naruto blandly stared at the game then shrugged. "Yeah, you prolly will."

Sasuke reeled back. Haku looked on with mild surprise.

"Whoa, was that humility?"

Naruto glared at him. "Shaddup. More like goddamn realism, geez. Y'know what," Naruto crossed his arms as a cocky smirk popped onto his lips. "I'd rather watch you lose to Haku."

Haku raised both hands at chest level and waved them, sheepishly declining to show off his skills like this. But then he questioned if real life training could translate to a game screen.

Sasuke scoffed. "Tagging out then, huh? Loser."

"Asshole."

As Sasuke pushed two coins into the slot and picked up the blue gun, Haku began to feel cold from his face to the tips of his fingers. Blinking away his anxieties, he looked down to see that Sasuke was holding out the red gun for him. The second that unusual plastic handgun entered his hands, Haku could feel his muscle memory creep up on him like goosebumps along his back. He staggered his feet and raised the gun up, both hands curled around the grip, his thumbs resting straight above the trigger. Tucking his chin down, he matched the crosshair on screen as if he were looking down on sight.

Sasuke took a step back. His chest twisted in disgust. Heat travelled up his arms. It stagnated in his palms and in his neck.  _So they've got him trained._  He would have assumed that a whelp like him would have been employed as a runner or servant, but no, Haku was more dangerous than he initially thought.

Sasuke raised up his gun and the competition began.

For Haku, it was just as easy as target practice despite the more frenetic environment and the jerky camera panning. This had become his element. With Zabuza, he couldn't afford to doubt himself, to make mistakes. Haku had learned to numb out his pacifism, his visceral instinct to puke and cry and scream at the unwarranted destruction of life. When he was numb, he was functional, valued. Being numb was the closest to being happy that he could get.

Making it through to the end, Haku had beaten Sasuke by twenty-eight points. Naruto grinned as he held his hand out. He received a sheepish low-five from the fourteen year old.

Moving on, the three boys roamed through the neon lit first floor, when a particular arcade cabinet caused Naruto to pause mid-step. Recognition sparkled in his eyes as he grabbed Haku's upper arm and dragged him from walking off. "Haku, remember this one?! Oh wait, what?" Naruto stared hard at the cabinet and was overcome with slight embarrassment.

It was an old 64-bit side scroller beat 'em up, the very first game based off of the  _Gutsy_  series. He had no idea back then, he couldn't read yet.

"Oh yeah," Haku's eyes softened as a fond smile warmed his features. "Neither of us could reach it, so I let you sit on my shoulders."

Naruto rubbed at the back of his head, eyes squinting to unimpressed slits. "Yeaaah, I still couldn't play it properly. My reach was so short, I was just slapping at the buttons like an idiot."

Just then Naruto's eyes glinted, equal parts mischief and knowing, like there were a million stories and in-jokes locked inside his head that only Haku would know.

"Play you." Naruto said.

Haku fished his pockets for change. "You're on."

And so they were, each taking their side of the console, their red and blue  _Narutos_ mowing down enemies side by side in a glory of flashy kunai throws and energy bombs. Enemies groaned and collapsed in bloody heaps.

Haku's calmer disposition worked to his advantage as Naruto failed to catch up to his score, but Haku didn't care about winning and Naruto didn't seem to care about losing. Their faux competition quickly tumbled into childish mayhem.

Naruto leaned heavily into Haku as he frantically pressed the red buttons, trying to get him to mess up. His face aglow in mirth, Haku pushed back and Naruto pushed harder until there was nothing but jabbing elbows and bursts of shocked laughter as each one-upped the other in dirty tactics. Then finally Naruto reached over and nudged Haku's hand around the blue joystick. His character fell in a tiger pit and laid impaled by three punji sticks.

" **CONTINUE? 10 SECONDS"**

Haku pulled away, seeming perturbed before he broke down laughing.

* * *

Their activities dwindled with the daylight, yet Naruto and Haku naturally fell into their usual conversations, forgetting about the time, the world, perfectly content with walking to nowhere. Growing up like they did, it was all they'd ever known. The sense that there was nothing ahead, and nothing behind.

To have another person understand you so completely was like at first being trapped on the moon, and all you had was one radio channel. You go on for four years, maybe ten, just waiting to hear a voice, some form of language, just anything else but static. And when that first hello finally comes, your heart is ready to burst like a water balloon. Fat tears of relief, amazement race down your cheeks and you can't signal them fast enough.

Their nostalgia, their observations, these shut Sasuke out. Experiences that he did not share in, that he had once been all too curious about when he first met Naruto, now seemed like purposeless indulgences. How long had they been apart for them to not have a single quiet moment together?

"Hey. Think I'm hungry again."

* * *

They entered the first fast food restaurant they strolled upon. Sasuke told the hyperactive blonde to hold a booth for them while he went in line. "Haku, wanna come with?"

Haku knew that tone, heard it almost daily from the men who ranked above him, even that old bulldog when she had needed his cooperation. It wasn't an invite, it was an order.

Both boys stood in line, Sasuke stared ahead with his chin held high and his back straight, Haku on the other hand fiddled with the hoodie drawstring, gaze drifting towards the right where Naruto was. The blonde sat in the booth, kicking his feet while he entertained himself with his smartphone, and Haku longed to return to that happy sphere.

"How long have you been yakuza?"

The drawstring slipped from his fingers. Like shattered pieces of a glass bottle, Haku carefully reconstructed his learnt facade of serene indifference as he turned to face the sharp Uchiha.

"You were careless last I saw you," Those cold, black eyes stared back into his, and Haku knew he was cornered. "You were still wearing the Gato family pin on your lapel."

Haku bit on the inside of his bottom lip, hoping to explain himself, to get on his good side any way that he could. "It wasn't my choice-"

"I don't care. I'm not letting your influence get a good kid killed," Sasuke turned away. "Look, I know how this works. Orphans are the most easy to target for recruitment. And that idiot over there," Sasuke jabbed a thumb in Naruto's direction. "Will do anything to find a family he can insert himself into. So here's what I'm telling you to do: Cut yourself out of his life."

Haku's breath shook from his nose. His radio signal gave way to bouts of static. "It sounds like you're giving me an ultimatum."

"Yeah. Don't do that, and I'll take you down myself," Sasuke shifted his gaze onto him yet again, the determination therein telling him he was nothing more than trash and was just as easy to dispose of. "I come from a long line of cops. Dad's a detective, mom's a prosecutor. I'll have the _kumi-in_  you work for incriminated somehow. Or maybe I'll just ruin your standing with your Kumicho."

Haku couldn't numb himself fast enough.  _This is a bad dream. I'll wake up soon. Please, let me wake up soon._  His voiced rasped barely above a whisper. "Understood."

"Just to be sure, you're going to do this exactly as I say: Make him hate you. I don't care how, just do it."

Haku's head hurt. It ached and it throbbed and it felt as though his eyes were being squeezed by an invisible fist. "Understood."

Sasuke scoffed and rolled his shoulders as an arrogant smirk cut across his face. "You're really just a dog, aren't you? I've given you enough of my time. You should go."

As Haku retreated from the line, apologizing profusely to the row of adults and high school kids as he brushed past, Sasuke's gaze flicked in Naruto's direction and he saw his face curl in confusion and slight distress, his blue eyes following Haku out the door.

When Sasuke returned with their drinks and katsu burgers, Naruto spoke up.

"Why'd he leave like that? I just came up with more things we could do together." Naruto stared at his food like he had received detestable military rations.

"He said something came up." Sasuke unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite. Naruto's mouth parted open as though he were ready to complain up a storm, but he resigned with a hollow nod. "So where were you planning on going?"

Naruto's jaw shifted to the left as he glared a hole into the table. "Well, you're not gonna go along with it…"

Sasuke lowered his food from his mouth. Was that supposed to mean that he was going to go with Haku alone knowingly? Why would he come up with something that Sasuke was going to say no to? "Tell me you weren't planning on committing petty crime."

"Technically, yes, intentionally no-"

"That's not how that works."

"Whatever!"

"Where?"

"The Arboretum!" Naruto threw up his hands and collapsed against the booth, his eyes glued to the window left of him.

Two hands slammed against the table. Their drinks trembled and Naruto snapped to attention. Sasuke was glaring at him with wide eyes, his face ashen. "Don't. Don't you fucking go there at night-"

Naruto's eyes lit up with mirth as his mouth twisted in an uncomfortable smile. He pointed a finger at Sasuke. "Whoa! I got you to finally cuss!"

"Shut up! You hearing me at all!? Don't go there!" Soon as Sasuke saw the shock finally hit Naruto, he felt like his insides had been pulled out and Sasuke quickly scrambled to pull himself back together. He calmly sat back down. "Anyways, I heard Kabuto praised you recently. Says you have a shot next year. Wouldn't wanna blow that over a bit of trespassing, right?"

Naruto opened his mouth then shut it soon after. "Yeah. True."

Naruto was tempted to explain himself, to say he didn't have any malicious intentions. He just wanted to try to see the stars from the nets. No, maybe the towers would be safer. The city was too bright. He hadn't seen the sparkling blue dark in eight years.

Back then he liked to climb up to the rooftop playground, nestle himself on the middle swing and simply gaze upwards into the heavens. It always made him feel a little small, but not really alone. It didn't matter what time it was, light or dark, he had always felt like he was stranded on a desert planet.

During the day, the tawny grass was an ocean that spread out from every corner of his small world. That pale two-lane road with its winding tar-covered fissures and faded white dashes was the only transport of other life; life that often passed him by. At night, that tawny grass had turned charcoal and periwinkle beneath the pearly moon, and it was so mysterious, so full of promise, like there was definitely another world out there.

In many ways, Naruto was still exploring this one.

"... You still going to pursue other sports?"

"Huh?" Naruto looked up. Sasuke's question hit him like his ears had been clapped. "Oh… nah," Naruto sank down the booth, as his contemplations grew heavy. "That's not something I can do."

Sasuke had no idea if Naruto had truly grown more realistic with himself or if it was doubt that troubled him. Was this what he had been brooding over since tryouts? "What do you mean?"

Naruto's face screwed up in derision. "The hell  _you_  mean? I can't do it all," He murmured. "Can't be like you. I'm not really good at anything, while you're good at everything. So I might as well just try to be amazing at one thing, y'know."

If Sasuke had just met Naruto, the blonde would have infuriated him to no end. He had grown loud, almost spaztic, and jumped between priorities like he had the attention span of a goldfish - but instead his desire to continuously better himself, that was something they shared in common and he admired Naruto for his consistency in that alone. He was intensely curious to see if Naruto could fulfill all the promises made to himself.

Naruto was a human example of 'the runt of the litter'.

Nature dictates the runt is inherently at a disadvantage. It's smaller, weaker. It'll struggle to compete with its siblings, and if it becomes rejected by its mother, it will simply struggle to survive. Sasuke wanted to see him become the anomaly that succeeded in every way.

And yet, Sasuke had heard something he couldn't shake off. Sure, he did seem to excel at first try. He was observant, a quick learner. Every cause had an effect. Apply that and everything becomes obvious. He still had to reach the bar that Itachi left behind, had to grab as many accomplishments as he could like a poor man grasping at falling money.

But what of physicality? Sociability? In his childhood, Sasuke had been the most popular. Now with their sphere greatly expanded, Sasuke saw more than a rival in Lee, who was capable of stealing his girlfriend's attention, he saw an enemy. Everything about Lee shouldn't be producing the positive results he was enjoying, but Lee proved to be the other bar Sasuke had to reach.

And if Naruto beat him to it, if he truly excelled at one thing, then he would be better than Sasuke at that one thing.

That's when he saw an opportunity.

* * *

When Naruto stepped into the gymnasium, dressed down to his white and orange trunks, his wrists and shins bound in wrappings, his heart sank to the ground.

Up there in the ring Lee was putting up an admirable fight against Sasuke, and it was the first time Naruto ever saw Lee look exhausted. Sasuke didn't look much better, but his flinty stare was telling: Sasuke still had loads of energy left.

Both boys were bruised red, Sasuke on his cheekbone and left pectoral, Lee around his left eye and inner forearms. Profuse sweating caused their hair to become matted down and stick to their ears and neck.

Sasuke threw a straight jab. Lee blocked it, crossing his wrists in front of his face. Sasuke was nearly as fast as Lee, nearly as strong, but it was his control that caused Lee to wince in pain, to cause him to stagger and doubt himself just long enough for Sasuke to sweep a kick into his right side.

Lee grasped his leg. He pushed forward, leading Sasuke to fall on his back. Naruto's fists jerked upwards, his hope riding on Lee's victory. The team captain stepped in to separate them and Sasuke rolled back onto his feet. Both boys bounced on the balls of their feet, circling each other closer and closer. Sasuke tightened up his shoulders, as well as the gap between his fists. Lee darted up to him. His leg lifted. His heel thrust down, aimed for Sasuke's stomach. Sasuke dipped back, then pushed forward. He grabbed Lee's calf and pulled him in. Sasuke threw three punches into Lee's left side like an iron piston. Lee fell onto his back, eyes squeezed shut, his mouth wide open but silent, still.

His eyes shot open, his chest heaved as he sharply gasped for breath. He rolled onto his right side, violent coughs scraping over his throat.

The gym hummed in shock and hushed fervor.

Lee lost to an underclassman.

Sasuke stood panting, staring down the one who annoyed him the most, and he relished in the sight of him weakened and on the ground. Immense joy at winning back his pride tugged his lips to bare his teeth and short bursts of tired laughter puffed from his chest.

Sasuke turned to share his joy with Naruto when he noticed Kabuto step away from the wall and begin to approach.

"As expected of an Uchiha. I'm beginning to think I should have you cloned and lead all the sports teams to victory," A sardonic smirk floated atop Kabuto's otherwise impassive features. The gym hummed again, this time in lukewarm chuckles.

Naruto's fists clenched tighter, his white knuckles almost popping from the pressure. Lee's face was marred by an unusual frown, the exuberant glow from his eyes dimmed to almost nothing. The sight of Sasuke standing there, smug and gloating, it felt as though Naruto had received those three punches as well. Lee was supposed to be  _his_  goal. No one else had defeated him. No one else was supposed to defeat him except for Naruto.

"Uchiha, would you be able to join the kickboxing team as well? I'm quite aware that your schedule is rather full."

"WAIT!" Naruto's scream, like all his frustration had filled to burst, pulled all eyes towards him. He was burning from the neck up, he seethed through snarling teeth while it felt as though his identity, his very existence was on the line. "Senpai, let me fight him! Then I can-"

Kabuto looked away and pushed up his glasses. "Naruto, I can't allow you to join until you're at the proper weight class. Please don't forget that."

Naruto's lips pressed into a thin line. He glared up at Sasuke, heart and fists itching to throw a punch right at his arrogant face. But the more he stared at him, the larger Sasuke seemed to become, like he possessed the dark aura of a war god. Negativity did strange things to his imagination. Naruto didn't understand why he felt this way, why he was intimidated, offended by the sight of his best friend.

Naruto turned, undoing his wrist wrappings as he made his way towards the locker room. It's not like he had to stay. He was training voluntarily. He could go home now and no one would complain. He just needed some time.

* * *

Sasuke entered the locker room to find his petulant best friend buttoning up his uniform shirt whilst his pants sagged around his hips.

Naruto knew he was there but wouldn't look up from the cold tiles. "You can't let me have  _one_  thing, can you? You always gotta make sure you're better than me."

Sasuke's brows knitted as he made sure to filter the stinging indignation from his response. "My intent isn't to belittle you. I thought you wouldn't mind having a higher bar to reach. And if I train you-"

Naruto barked out a laugh, his eyes lit up with bemused incredulity. "You can't teach me anything. You're a natural. You fucking… You just learn by looking! You don't have years of technique like Might Guy or Lee! I have to kill myself to get anywhere close to you!" Naruto turned away to fasten the third to last button. He shook his head whilst sarcasm curled his lips. "You really are a piece of shit."

Sasuke's indignation flared like gasoline had been tossed onto a low burning fire. Abstractions of violence buzzed in the shadows of his mind, but he quickly dismissed them as too unformed to be considered. "Then you're a coward who's fine with settling for second best. If you stopped kickboxing and went somewhere else, and I followed you there, would you give up again?"

Sasuke's assessment didn't sting as much as it ought, because Naruto had already figured that out. Naruto knew better than to be afraid of failure. So why was he balking?

"If you did that, I would think something was seriously wrong with you. Like you were lonely or someth'..." Sober realization dawned on Naruto. The room lapsed in a heavy, awkward silence as Naruto hesitated to expand on his comment.

In the end he never had to talk about it with the brooding Uchiha, for he had walked away as fast as he could.

* * *

"The Hyuuga are on the move." Announced Police Inspector Morino Ibiki as he made a beeline for his office. He was a large, stoic man, built like an obelisk with thin, beady eyes. Two jagged, diagonal scars marred his face, from the outer end of his left eye, over the left edge of his wide mouth, ending at the center of his chin. The second scar starting from the inside of his right eye, down to the edge of his right jaw.

As Ibiki brushed past, Assistant Police Inspector Hatake Kakashi pushed away from his desk, forcing his weary sigh to take a backseat as he obediently followed after him.

Two desks over, an idle Police Sergeant with short, spiky black hair was leaning as far back as his office chair would allow, tapping a pen against his opposite forefinger as if he were a school boy awaiting for the bell to ring. His right eye was obscured by black cloth, an appearance that derived a multitude of interesting and annoying reactions, from shock to curiosity, to derision and pity. He had gotten used to the insensitive jabs.  _"Were you looking down the barrel when you did that?"_  This was not something earned on the job, but the story behind it wasn't exactly his most favorite to tell.

Eventually he felt the expectant stares aimed at his back and he kicked at the floor, spinning halfway, then to a dead stop as he planted his shoes on the carpet. He pointed at his face with the pen. "What, me too?"

Whether Obito liked it or not, these two men, who were the same age as him, were his superiors. Morino shouldn't even have been allowed to take the promotion test, but his track record was impressive, impeccable. Obito bet that damn scarecrow would succeed him sometime after, and Obito would be stuck in the same position as ever, fetching coffee or obscure editions of  _Icha Icha_  for that silver-haired pervert. Their rivalry had fizzled out years ago. Obito could pursue to take the promotion test yet again, but after being failed five times, he stopped caring. Or rather, he eventually found something to truly care about.

Rolling his shoulders, he got to his feet and followed after them.

On his desk and well on his mind, sat his black laptop bag full of promise.

Compared to that, being here felt like an internship.

* * *

Zabuza sat at the kitchen table in near darkness, his fingertips coated in fresh blood as he worked a needle through the torn skin of his left bicep. A heavy sigh sank out of his chest. He reached for the bottle of whiskey and put it to his lips, dipping his head back as he took a swig. Placing the bottle down, he stared at his hands, willing them to stop their shaking. It wasn't so much for himself that he shook, but for his hurting protege.

Situations like this, he would normally be seen by their employed physician, but Zabuza couldn't let this injury be known, otherwise Gato would know that Haku had fucked up tonight. And yet Zabuza felt every perceived failure of Haku's as his own, that he had let him down more these past fourteen days than he ever had.

Zabuza hung his head, letting the heat of alcohol embrace every inch and vessel of his body, softening the bruises on his heartstrings to tolerable, fuzzy pangs.

Haku's been struggling since that night he let him go out with Naruto and his friend. Zabuza had headed to bed long before Haku had returned, a slight on his part that he deeply regretted, because when he awoke Haku had not. He laid in bed, sullen and morose. And though it pained him for such rejection to grip his gentle-hearted apprentice, Zabuza had felt oddly grateful, as though it were a sign of his youth, of his still in-tact heart. And Zabuza had wished to give him all the time he needed to recover, for Haku was entitled to sulk as boys his age do.

But Gato hadn't been in the best of spirits that day. When Zabuza showed up without his protege, his Kumicho sent out Waraji to pick him up, and Zabuza had to stifle the intense unease he felt, the anxiety-stirring scenarios that had taunted his mind.

Waraji liked to mess with Haku like he were nothing more than a rabbit to be eaten. Zabuza would never allow those two to be alone together, had always kept Haku close to his side. When the two had arrived, Haku had been clutching himself, his head down in shame and fear. That became his second mistake.

" _There you are. Had enough sleep, brat?" Gato bent from the waist to get a good look at Haku who avoided his eyes. Gato ignored the dark circles, the haunted depths of his doe eyes. Gato wrinkles deepened as he snarled. "Disrespectful little shit." Gato pulled away and snapped his fingers. Waraji reacted like a dog to a whistle. "Fix him."_

_Waraji grinned audaciously as he shoved his fingers through Haku's hair and yanked his head back at the scalp._

_Zabuza's hand flinched towards his gun, earning Gato's mistrustful ire. The merc-turned-kuni-in stilled, remembering himself. It took the remnants of his self-control not to spit orders at Waraji to release his apprentice. But Zabuza had no power here._

Even now he was stained with the stigma uselessness for not intervening, but he had feared an apology would have only fed Gato's paranoid state into thinking they were guilty of something.

The Hyuuga family were trying to lure Danzo away from them, a move no one would have expected from such a self-sufficient and prideful organization. But that's what made it so clear to him: They were the least detestable organization in the country, they would have higher odds of gaining Danzo's trust than anyone. An ultranationalist like him and a clan who operated almost no differently than then the  _machi-yakko_  of days past; Surely they could build ties together.

The past two weeks had forced Zabuza and Haku to track Hyuuga Hiashi's activities. Twenty-six fast food stops, three cartons of filter-free cigarettes, one hundred and forty-four hours of silence and cramped legs, a hundred more spent in bad sleep.

And in all that time he couldn't get Haku to talk, couldn't get the boy to come out of his head, at least if not to unload the pain of his soul but to focus on the mission.

_It's been six hours since Haku and Zabuza took to the freeway, following Hyuuga Hiashi's armored limousine to god knows where, and Haku's knees were complaining._

_He sat curled against the passenger door, mouth in his palm, as if he could literally put everything he hated behind him. The fist around his eyes had already drained him of every tear he could shed, leaving him sore and more empty than he could remember. His soul felt trapped in a jar, one that was kept close at Gato's side. His heart was like a vase collecting unwanted memories that he had to constantly pour back out._

_Being numb was the only useful thing Zabuza taught him, and yet before his selling, Haku had already been on his way to learning it himself. They had the same eyes, after all._

_Zabuza was constricted by the silence between them, and the guilt of his own doing. He wanted to ask. He wanted Haku to rely on him. But no, what made him think he should have it that easy? Three times Zabuza had failed him and it hadn't even been a full day._

_The furtive glances he stole were the only tell that Zabuza was trying to come up with something to say._

_Sometimes Zabuza wondered how beautiful his mother must have been, wanted Haku to talk about her so the boy could remember the parts that made her human, not a butchered victim._

" _I've been thinking we should take a vacation. Your mother was from my home country, wasn't she? Do you remember which island?" This was the most he had ever spoken, and it unnerved Zabuza how child could render him so willing and vulnerable._

" _It snowed."_

" _Ah," The car lapsed into silence and Zabuza drummed away at the steering wheel. "It's generally cool there, the whole country, I mean. Maybe you won't like it, but I always thought it was too bright here. The fog there is so impenetrable at times that you need a flashlight even midday. But when you travel to the wharf and the water disappears into a solid, grey horizon, you can't help but think that the world goes on forever-"_

" _Stop. Just stop," Haku hid his eyes behind his palm, as the words shook out as venom from his mouth. "We're never going to have a 'vacation'. We'll never leave Hi no Kuni. I'll never see your hometown nor my mother's. I want you to stop deluding me all the time. Stop trying to convince me of a future that doesn't exist. This is the fog, Zabuza. And there's nothing here."_

_Zabuza's hands tightened around the wheel. "You're right," Zabuza knew, had been disillusioned long ago. "I just wanted to hope too, for your sake-"_

_The hand around Haku's eyes fell hard against the seat as the teen glared at Zabuza with all the blackness he could match. "Then keep it to yourself!"_

How he had wondered if Waraji didn't terrorize him too badly, if Haku hadn't been too frightened to awake in the apartment alone.

When they returned home, Zabuza finally understood.

_Had Zabuza still been living alone, he would have been unfazed by the destruction awaiting him inside his apartment. The sofa had been gutted with a blade, plastic DVD cases left opened and strewn about on the carpet. The kitchen cabinets were open, the foodstuff and dishes therein disturbed. Several holes had been punched through the drywall, and a pile of laundry sat in the hallway between their two bedrooms, the flimsy hamper tossed aside._

" _I think Waraji was looking for something…" Haku mumbled. "Before he found me."_

" _Blood money." Zabuza shook his head. Rumors tended to be the death of people, and Zabuza had no such fortune from his old life. If he did, he wouldn't have shared sake with Gato._

_Zabuza's gaze followed Haku as he stooped down and picked the discarded sofa cushion. The boy would soon set his mind to cleaning, as if it was all he was good at._

_When Zabuza headed to the bathroom to retrieve his tactical surgical kit, he glanced at Haku's bedroom. The door had been forced open, the frame left splintered and the strike plate popped out. Clothes were strewn about on the floor as if they had been thrown, and the dark blue comforter was crumpled and pushed aside. What security Zabuza had promised him long ago had been ripped away in a single morning, all because he had gone soft for the boy._

Zabuza completed the suture and wiped away the blood before pushing himself away from the table. He made his way down the hall, pausing outside Haku's bedroom. He traced the hole where the strike plate used to be, thinking to himself that he would need to add on two more locks on top of the replacement.

"You really wanna know what Waraji said as he was dragging me out?" Zabuza turned towards the den, where Haku lay on the couch. Haku's voice was soft, almost ghostly, that inherent serenity to his cadence cracked with hopelessness. "Told me he was getting excited, because I'm pretty like a girl. Said it brought back memories of what he did to his neighbor's kid sister."

The door frame creaked beneath Zabuza's grip. He couldn't bring himself to ask, didn't want to force Haku to think about it any further. He turned away and squeezed his eyes shut. "Go to sleep, Haku."

* * *

Naruto jogged beneath rows of street lamps, their yellow glow making him appear as though he could flash in and out of existence.

Two weeks had passed since the locker room, and Naruto and Sasuke hadn't talked since, both adopting a mutual vow to leave each other alone. It seemed the manly thing to do.

Yet, such social abstinence had left Naruto craving calmer company.

His face glowed with a smile as he rocketed up to the stairs that would lead to Zabuza and Haku's apartment.

Naruto had exhausted all consensus and validation he could pester out of his side crew of friends, ending with Lee. What he got from Lee was both support and disappointment. He understood and admired Naruto's competition of the self but felt somewhat let down by the possibility that Naruto could quit kickboxing at any moment.

Since Lee's defeat, Naruto had been declining to resume training, only coming around to the gym to spectate while he sorted through his mind. In the end Naruto didn't feel like he got anywhere to understanding what was going on with him. He hoped Haku's unique insight would get to the heart of things, just as he always did.

Hopping up three steps at a time, Naruto stomped onto the landing, then began to knock on the door with the urgency of a toddler about to piss himself. "Haku! Open up! Hey, you didn't answer my texts, so I came anywaaaays!"

It was well after midnight. A decision that would have been ill-advised were it with anyone else, but midnight was their park strolling time and Naruto wasn't going to be scared this time if shots rang off in the night.

Naruto banged on the door again. "I know you're home! I wanna hear how things went! C'mon!"

The latch clicked and the door receded inwards. Naruto's grin dimmed. "Hey, what's wrong?" Cold silence brought heat to throb in Naruto's ears, his chest clenched and fluttered. "Was the mission that bad?"

Haku's features softened in deep resignation. He shook his head. "Naruto, I'm trying to sleep."

Naruto smiled, his forlorn eyes creasing. "Yeah, 'trying'. Why else did we start taking walks?"

Haku slipped onto the landing and shut the door behind him as if he were escaping the tiger's den. He kept his gaze low and began to depart, Naruto following close behind. Like millions of silk threads being pulled from a finish sheet, Haku felt like he was coming undone, slipping further and further away from himself.

Naruto reached his side but kept his silence, his gaze held steady towards the horizon.

"Where're we going?" Haku finally asked.

"Well, I don't wanna make you do something you don't want, but… it's some place we have to break into."

Haku knew Naruto better than to assume he was planning something selfish, and his curiosity piqued despite the resignation that shackled him. "I'm in."

After all, he was a criminal, wasn't he?

* * *

Haku truly was the only person he could rely on in this situation. The only other way Naruto could have achieved this was if he had hid inside well past closing, but of course he didn't have the patience for that.

Hiding in the shadows, ducking the security cameras with their limited range, they slipped inside the heart of the arboretum, like two cats inside a birdcage.

The familiar loam hit Naruto's nose, but unlike the stuffy heat of the day, it was like a bog in the dead of autumn. The wooden towers stood out beneath the muted moonlight above the shadowy jungle that eclipsed them.

Haku followed his gaze but had his doubts. "Why here?"

"There's many places to go to view the city, but not the stars." Naruto broke out into a jog, unable to stifle himself any longer but not wanting to lose Haku in the process.

"Eh?" Haku ran after him, keeping a hush on his volume. "I thought you're scared of heights!"

Scrambling up the spiral staircase, the pungent scent of peat gave way to fresh, cold air and the heart opened up to Naruto in a sea of charcoal blue foliage, some fringed like an eagle's wings, others spread open like a oriental fan. Naruto glanced up and peered through the opening of the arboretum like he were standing at the bottom of a tea kettle.

The deciduous trees that lined the upper floors spilled out over the glass but could not enclose the center. Naruto frowned and collapsed against the wooden guardrail. "Well, it was worth a shot."

Haku gazed into the blue dark abyss. A moonless night and still no stars. "We could've gone anywhere, y'know."

"Yeah, but I'd been thinking about this place a lot," Naruto looked down, and it seemed as if the earth had been bitten off, leaving behind a void. Somehow that didn't bother him as much as heights usually did. He couldn't see where his body would land, so he couldn't picture it at all. Maybe he would really fall forever. "I was here on a school trip six months ago. I was trying to…" The way Sasuke had scrutinized him that day caught up with him, and his cheeks warmed in embarrassment. "I was hoping she could see what we were seeing."

Haku approached the guardrail and rested his elbows atop it. He raised his face to the sky. It felt like his soul had been scratched with a bit of poison since he got back from the mission and it'd been slowly consuming him.

_Haku strolled through the halls of the hotel, his footsteps soundless like a feather on the carpet. There, about to slide the keycard into his hotel suite, stood Hyuuga Hiashi. He was forty-two years old, long brown hair swept from his proud forehead, his ornate ecru haori giving him the silhouette of a powerful noble from a bygone era. Haku frowned with distaste. 'Looks good for someone who lost his only daughter.'_

_Haku lifted his gun. "Hyuuga Hiashi."_

_This wasn't part of the plan. Actually there was no plan. Only the order to follow. Haku wasn't even supposed to be up here. But if he could take out the variable in their Danzo problem in true yakuza fashion, then Haku could redeem himself. The future didn't exist. Consequences were bullshit. Haku was useful now. He had to be._

_The Hyuuga head turned, his smooth features impassive as he sized up his wannabe assassin. His shoulders sank. "This is precisely where Gato and I do not agreed. We do not deal in children."_

_Haku's finger sank against the trigger. He flinched._

_The gun went off, a single bang burst to ring his ears and a groan sounded from behind. Haku's fingers turned to ice, the gun trembled in his hands._

_Hizashi stood unfazed, wielding a gun aimed at his head._

_The wallpaper. Haku had shot the wallpaper. 'So fast.' Haku sucked for breath, reality crashing into him like a meteor. "Zabuza!" Tears streamed anew and his mentor wrapped a protective arm around his front. Haku darted a look to his left. Zabuza was bleeding._

"It's Hinata, isn't it? The one you want to protect?" Haku closed his eyes.  _And I almost killed him. I tried to. I could've taken him away from her._

"The statistics aren't hopeless," Naruto began, voice softened by wistfulness. "Even people who've been missing for so long turn up somehow. I don't know how to be the one to find her, but I hope I can be a friend to her. Disappearing has always scared me," Naruto turned towards Haku and frowned. His pale hands gripped the guardrail, his nails dug into the finely sanded oak. "Haku?"

"I think disappearing would be the best thing that's ever happened to me."

How was he supposed to go about this? Sasuke wants Naruto to hate him no matter what. He had a job to do. He always had a goddamn job to do. Always expected to hurt others, be it murder or sabotage, didn't matter.

Criminals took advantage of him, peeled down his walls like the tender skin off a tangerine. Police, so-called upholders of justice, were against him, would never see him as the victim he truly was, but as the scum of society to be scraped from the bottom of their shoes.

There was no being saved. Eight days on the road spent living in a tormented daze, letting what nebulous self-image he retained to be eaten away by carrion beetles of shame, had lead him to giving up in a way he had yet to reach. Numbing himself had been one thing, but paled in comparison to killing away all the hope he could grasp, like he were frantically chasing after a million balloon strings.

Sasuke was almost merciful in demanding that Haku murder only their friendship.

The second Haku placed his right foot atop the guardrail he found himself flat on his back, looking up at livid blue eyes.

"WERE YOU REALLY GONNA DO THAT IN FRONT OF ME?!"

Haku shut his eyes and the world with it. Naruto's fist around his collar shackled him with guilt that he could not express. He nearly took away Naruto's only chance to be with the family he truly wanted. His loyalty alone to a girl he didn't know, their true heir, would surely work in his favor.

Naruto shook him, as if every knock to the back of Haku's head would help drive in his point. "Don't you fucking try that ever again! I don't have anybody and I would never do that!"

Haku knocked his hand away and rolled to his feet, but Naruto was on him again, hands in his collar as if he had to be ready to yank Haku back onto the side of the living at any moment. Haku glared at him. For once the resentment he harbored drifted in Naruto's direction. "What do you mean you don't  _have_  anybody? You have friends-"

"Not like you-"

Haku wanted to roll his eyes.  _What's that supposed to mean?_ "What about that woman?"

Naruto shook his head, his eyes flat and lips pressed in a thin line, yet somehow he looked like he was smiling. "I messed that up. Haven't spoke with her in two months. I don't think I meant much to her to begin with, she just couldn't let a dumb kid like me be too lonely, y'know?" Naruto ignored the way Haku's eyes pitied him, he didn't care for it, and right now wasn't about him. "Zabuza treats you like you were his own son. Can't you tell? Or am I wrong? Someone as heartless-looking as that guy  _loves_  you. Isn't that fucking amazing?"

Haku placed his cold hands over Naruto's and pushed them down. Naruto released him, his jaw clicking as he tried to hold back his tears.  _Can't I help you at all?_

Tears slipped down Haku's pallid cheeks, framing his serene smile. "Then I really have to protect the one who loves me with all my might, don't I?"

All the weight, all the fear flew away like an explosion of blackbirds taking to the sky, and the gratefulness that gleamed from his teeth and poured from his eyes shook Naruto to his core. Wet, exuberant chuckles bubbled out of him. "Hell yeah!"

Haku reached out. His icy fingers grasped a fistful of blonde hair and he threw all his weight into his arm. He slammed the thirteen year old's head into the guardrail. Naruto's eyes bulged with a stunned cry. Blood trickled from his temple, it rolled off the underside of his chin and struck the top of his right hand. Fear seized his breath, it silenced his instincts as he craned his head and stared at his first friend, his truest friend. The one who understood him the most.

"Stop."

Haku grasped his head again and repeated the same motion. A pathetic scream echoed over the trees. Hot tears fell, mixing with the crimson staining his skin. The guardrail once immaculate, once tinged with a line of blood, now boasted a bright smear.

Naruto turned his face up once more, cold quakes rendering his limbs useless and fuzzy. "Don't." His plea was futile and he knew it. Haku's eyes were stony and abyssal, and though Naruto didn't understand why this was happening, he knew this was his final night on earth.

Haku grasped his hair again with his opposite hand. Naruto keened. Haku smashed his knuckles into Naruto's left eye, again, and again, until the swollen flesh closed it shut.

Naruto always learned something new from Haku. These were the punches he was supposed to be throwing all along. Brutal. Efficient. Frightened chuckles bubbled up amidst his hoarse and hollow sobs. Haku wasn't stopping and Naruto was distinctly aware that the world was getting darker. "Stop."

Hot pain burned his eyes and lanced to the back of brain like electrified needles and he cried. His nose had healed three months ago, but it always felt a little off when he slept. Surely it was shattered now, wasn't it? Couldn't bits of bone find their way into his brain?

Haku did finally stop yet he held his head back like he were yanking a leash. The air was no longer fresh, but metallic, pungent.

"You have everything but love. I have nothing but love. It's funny how our paths turned out this way," Naruto tugged and clawed to get away but Haku kept him in place. "You're afraid to die, but shouldn't it be you who can let go the easiest?"

Naruto shook his head and wept in silence. "I don't wanna disappear. Haku, please."

"Why? Because you matter? To who?"

Naruto's teeth scraped along his bottom lip and his tongue tingled with the acrid sweetness of blood. "I thought I mattered at least to you…" Naruto's good eye squeezed shut. "I don't understand… What did I do? Haku?"

Haku wondered if his father had felt this way when he was murdering his wife. Powerful. Burdened. Insides scratched open with anguish. With love. Naruto had given him a gift. It was clarity. Haku couldn't live in Naruto's world and that was fine now, because he had Zabuza. This was his true initiation rite.  _Thank you for being my only friend._

Haku bent down to Naruto's level and leaned in close as he reached for his back pocket. "It's going to be okay, Naruto. Maybe you'll find someone over there who'll love you."

Something smooth and polished glinted in Haku's hand, but before Naruto could see what it was, the fourteen year old had shoved his head down against the wooden planks, pinning him there, and he began to thrust at his gut in sloppy, rapid succession.

Haku released the stiletto blade and drew to full height. He fully accepted the poison as he gazed down at the unconscious junior high student, his face broken, bloody and swollen, his black gakuran shimmering with his blood. He dared Sasuke to come after him, whether or not Naruto managed to survive.

He wouldn't let people underestimate him again.

He wouldn't let himself be taken advantage of again.

As much as Haku loved Naruto like a little brother, the optimistic whelp should have known better than to bring a cop's son between them.

Haku wiped at the fresh tears with the back of his wrist before cleaning the blood from his palms across the top of his jeans. He fished out his cell phone and typed in the emergency number. He put the device to his ear and descended the stairs, careful not to emit noise.

"H,Hello? O,Oh my god, I think I saw a man drag a kid into the arboretum! I,I heard screaming- Please come quick, I think it's happening again!"

* * *

A light pierced the inky abyss. A monotonous beeping resounded all around him, suddenly hitting him louder, faster.

Naruto emerged from black, viscid sleep and was thrust forward into a reality of agony, his dilated eyes darting about, trying to piece his mind back together.

His hands sought and patted his body for recognition, the soreness in his right arm tugged his eyes towards the tubes attached. His breath came in short, sharp gasps.

White walls. White lights. White curtains. White sheets. White bed.

He knew this place. There were many like them. He spent his first three years in a place like this, but not in a bed like this.

His face twinged and cried out. It felt heavy when he knew it shouldn't. Not every part of it felt heavy but most of it did. He reached up, and felt gauze. He poked gingerly at his lower abdomen. Beneath the thin cover of his gown was bumpy, grotesque terrain, with hard, thin lines here and there like a mangled train track.

Tears bubbled up as his memory slowly returned to him and he felt so sick to his stomach.

His head lolled to the left and his heart shot up into his mouth. He scrambled away into the plastic rail.

There seated no more than six feet from him was a man, not young but not old, with short, spiky black hair and one eye. At least that is, the right eye was covered by black cloth. He was dressed in a light blue uniform, short sleeved and collared, his pressed slacks black and fitted. His black shoes were polished. His wore white gloves as many of his kind did. A pale yellow badge with the Tokonoha leaf in the center, flanked by three vertical bars, was pinned to his left chest.

Police. That's what he was.

The man's lips stretched into a placid smile and that's when Naruto noticed something strange about his skin beneath the mask.

"Hello, Uzumaki."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary:
> 
> Bukatsu: Club/Circle/Extra Curricular Activity
> 
> Kumicho: Head of the Yakuza (applicable to the larger syndicates. Previous chapter I used Oyabun, when it should have been Kumicho, for distinction purposes.)
> 
> Wakagashira: Second in Command (Makes sure the Oyabun's orders are carried out correctly by the Wakashu. Waraji holds this title.)
> 
> Shateigashira: Third in Command (leader of the Kyodai. Kyodai handle the Kobun)
> 
> Kobun: Children, underlings (Yakuza have a Oyabun-Kobun relationship, so Kobun is an umbrella term. If you have a boss, you are kobun)
> 
> Kanbu: Yakuza Officers (Umbrella term for those ranks just below Kumicho. They may be executives, advisers and lieutenants)
> 
> Shuhensha: A group within the Shuhensha are Kigyo shatei, 'business brothers', they share the same rank as trainees 'Jun-kosei-in', but operate outside of the Yakuza. They have legit business fronts and the like.
> 
> Famiresu: Family Restaurant
> 
> Kumi-in: Soldiers, Enlisted men. (Zabuza holds this title but is a unique case, Kumi-in otherwise make up the majority of Yakuza and handle most things that need to be done, which sound generally mundane compared to Zabuza's responsibilities)


	3. Prologue Conclusion

Obito drummed his pen against his knee, his patience thinning in the silence. This was a sooner reunion than planned, and the circumstances were not ideal. And now the scrawny blood sack had gone unresponsive.

_Assistant Police Inspector Hatake Kakashi leant away as a new case file dropped onto his paperwork._

" _Review this," Police Inspector Morino said as Kakashi parted the manila folder open. "He's reached stable condition. I want you to interview him when he awakes."_

_Kakashi's fingers curled tight over his mouth as he leaned against his desk. The face that stared back at him… Disheveled blonde hair, bright blue eyes. 'Brighter than his.'_

_Obito balanced on the back two wheels of his office chair, amazed at the rigidity that seized the otherwise self-possessed Kakashi._

_Kakashi flipped through the documents, absorbing the details therein._

_Thirteen years old. Several transfacial fractures of the midface. Blunt force trauma to the right side of the head. Nine penetrating stab wounds to the lower abdomen with a four inch stiletto knife. Undergone exploratory surgery for perforation of the bowels. Found on a sightseeing tower inside the Tokonoha Metropolitan Arboretum after a frantic call. Caller could not be contacted nor traced._

" _... I don't think I'm right for this." This child looked too much like Sensei._

_Obito hovered over Kakashi's shoulder like a vulture before snatching the case file from his desk._

" _Sergeant!" Morino complained, only to receive a dismissive wave from Obito._

" _I got this, Inspector. I'm much better with kids, anyways."_

"Uzumaki."

Light returned to his blue eyes as his eyelids fluttered with regained awareness. "S,Sorry?"

Obito pressed his thumb hard against the pen. "What do you remember?" The little runt shrugged and Obito thought he would snap his pen in half. "This is important. Can you at least try?" The last thing Tokonoha and he needed was an ignorant copycat killer. So much of the available evidence went against that theory, after all Naruto had been found far from the dormant God Tree implying whatever their MO, it did not align with his own. But the coincidence of an attempted murder at that place still put Obito on edge.

The light was gone again, Naruto's eyes drifting shut as he slumped upright.

The pen clattered on the tile.

The chair screeched as Obito dashed forward.

He caught the back of Naruto's head before it had hit the corner of the window sill. Obito's jaw shifted, unable to deny that it was the warmth of a human being against his hand.

This was the third time since yesterday that he awoke and lost consciousness shortly after.

Sighing, Obito lowered the bandaged and battered child onto his pillows. He eyed the remote attached to the bedside and hit the nurse call button.

They really need to check his head again.

* * *

Konan sat in the vague and empty dark, sausaged in her black vinyl mini dress, her hair and skin reeking of cigarettes, sweat, perfume and aftershave. Curled in a corner of her sunken living room sofa, she gazed at the gleaming skyline beyond her balcony window, clutching a glass of whiskey close to her bare clavicle.

There on the circular coffee table were two empty black bottles of merlot wine and two red-stained glasses, along with the boxy decanter of whiskey.

The individual pieces of a man's suit laid discarded on the floor behind her like breadcrumbs leading to her bedroom, from the silk blue tie to the black socks clinging with shirt-stay garters.

Her heart hung heavily within herself, as if she were down to two fragile heartstrings before she would snap.

The indicator light of her smartphone blinked blue the way that her eyes blinked back tears.

The hospital had called her three days ago. She was his emergency contact, after all. Never had she thought she would truly get that phone call one day. But she hadn't seen him, not yet. It seemed that everything she touched became corrupted until it withered and died like a poisoned flower.

The last time she saw Naruto she blamed herself for the despair and confusion he harbored. He was too young to hate, she didn't want him anywhere near such emotions, and yet there was Nagato who was so quick to give it.

She thought it best to distance herself to save him, if it were possible. This was no longer a family. This was an empty, rotted coffin obscured by a bed of wildflowers. She would not have him seduced by the veneer of beauty only to fall six feet beneath it.

Not like Jiraiya.

A bawdy and gregarious jokester like him, what had caused a bachelor like that to adopt three orphans?

Well, he had become taken with the wily brats who had robbed him.

The world had gone through its second World War, and Jiraiya, born shortly after, had enjoyed the fruits of his elders' labor as Hi no Kuni rose from the ashes like a phoenix. The Golden Era of Hi no Kuni had been one defined by freedom - artistically, philosophically, intellectually, sexually - hurtling ever forward into a bright destiny, funded by the rapid growth of technological corporations and yakuza businesses alike.

Long-haired, and with an affinity for  _geta_  sandals, Jiraiya entered college with the rose-colored glasses of youth resting on the edge of his wide nose. He wanted to write. He didn't care what; his drive was to help others, even inspire them. He dabbled in poetry, short stories for sci-fi magazines, wrote columns for his college's sports section. Merely practice for him. He gravitated towards the liberal political scene, finding no fault in wanting to focus on the troubles and misery of countries other than his own. Why not, after all? Hi no Kuni was experiencing an excess of happiness. If he could spread that happiness and rescue his enemies, then all threats would be eliminated. There would be a lasting peace.

Throwing his all into Investigative Journalism, Jiraiya chose to wet his feet in the industrial city of Furuame, the tentative capital of a country with no name and borders that shifted arbitrarily depending on the oligarch of the year. It was a lawless land rife with civil conflict

Assassinations were common.

Poverty ill-prioritized.

The type of place that's absolutely forbidden to tourists.

Yet Jiraiya, as his irreverent self, carried himself this way.

Konan had lost her parents to random acts of violence. Yahiko's to wrong place, wrong time. Nagato lost his the most regrettably: Two Kusadani soldiers had defected from their company as they were making way towards the capital and had barged into Nagato's childhood home, demanding food and alcohol. A tense night of entertaining men armed with assault rifles strapped to their backs, while Nagato hid in the bathroom, then one of them had announced his boredom before shooting first his father, then his mother.

Weeks spent wandering the rain drunk landscape, searching and scrounging for food had somehow brought the three together.

A couple months of near starvation, and Yahiko decided enough was enough. They had to work smarter, not harder. They trekked to the city and turned to thievery. And it worked. It worked really well. Up to a point.

Upon turning nine, the boys had insisted Konan beg to work as a busgirl at a local brothel like she were some trainee  _Maiko_ , that way she could find rich men to target.

She had spent two years greeting horny men at the door and delivering booze to the patron's tables while the sleazy men copped feels off the half-naked women in their lingerie or loosely worn yukatas. And though she watched on with the innocent audacity of a child, they managed to pretend she wasn't there. They had no shame.

All except for him.

When Jiraiya first entered the brothel, simultaneously eager and flustered, Konan had never taken her eyes off him. His laughed boomed over the cheap slow jazz music. His quips were quite silly and often made at himself. She never got to greet him as she had been busy sweeping up a broken beer bottle from the floor, so he never saw her, not until much later.

As the young blonde prostitute crouched down between his legs, Konan strode over with his order of hot sake. She never forgot the look on his face. Eyes wide like a full moon, and face childishly red, as if he had been the one scandalized. He had pushed the woman away, cupped his crotch and rolled off the sofa before dashing out the entrance.

" _I found someooone." Konan had gleefully announced in sing-song as she entered their hideout: an abandoned auto repair garage. "He's a tourist."_

_Yahiko squinted at her with a slack jaw. "A what? Since when do we get those? He's gotta be a friggin' idiot to come here."_

" _Exactly," Konan's grin turned dark and mischievous. "He's young, he's a sap and he's loaded."_

_Nagato, in all his timidity, scratched idly at the rust-stained concrete that he crouched upon, till orange dust gathered beneath his fingernail. "How are we doing this, then?"_

_Konan had given this some thought. After all, that blush she had seen could be interpreted multiple ways. "I'll bait him."_

Konan never knew back then the lewdness that she carried inside herself. At that time, she relished in the sense of power she had over the silly man, wanting nothing more than to tease and rile him, to elicit that blush and pretend that she was the most desirable woman in all of Rain Country.

_She mimicked the girls back at the brothel, traipsing up to his hotel room with her yukata spread open from the waist._

_She knocked._

_The hotel door swung open, revealing a hungover Jiraiya with a pencil tucked behind his right ear. Upon recognizing her and her inappropriate attire, Jiraiya reeled back, as if discovering a python had been delivered to his door._

" _You like me, don't you?" She grinned like her cheeks were stuffed grapes._

" _No! No, no, no, no, no! You've got it all wrong!" Jiraiya snapped down to a crouch, pulling her yukata closed while looking away from her. "Don't get any fool ideas in your head. I didn't expect to see a child in a brothel house."_

_Konan frowned. She needed to get inside his hotel room. Plus he wasn't blushing as much as before, so that was boring. Back to the basics. "Sir, I'm hungry."_

_Jiraiya held out several 500 ryo bills._

_Konan bit the inside of her cheek as she scowled at the paltry donation. "That's it?"_

_He rubbed at the back of his head, laughing weakly. "Well, now, you know what happens when you feed a pigeon once, right?"_

" _You see any birds around here?!" She slapped his hand away then balled up her fists at her sides. "A tourist like you is gonna die out here!" She turned heel and ran off. This was her first time having an idea and she failed. Her chest clenched at the thought that Yahiko might ridicule her for her failure, that he might scold her. He always had the ideas. He was the bold one. They never failed when he was leader. She feared losing his esteem, but truthfully, Yahiko would never do that. Maybe she secretly wanted to be scolded, to experience consequences instead of floating freely in this amoral lifestyle. There was love in discipline._

_Little did she know that Jiraiya had become smitten in a different way._

" _Oh! She did it!" Yahiko exclaimed in a hush as he peeked from behind the corner at the opposite end of the hall. That white-haired foreigner was chasing after her. "And he left the hotel room open! C'mon!"_

_Nagato darted inside the room after Yahiko, frowning. "I don't think that's how the plan was supposed to go."_

" _Bah, good enough!" Yahiko chortled as he sized up the cramped and dingy room. There was a desk to the left beside the bed no bigger than a shoe rack, with stacks of scattered sheets and two empty beer bottles. At the center of the room was a low coffee table, where amazingly were even more empty beer bottles. "Writers really are alcoholics, huh?"_

" _How would you know?" Nagato quipped as he rifled through the bathroom._

" _It's just something I heard once."_

" _Once doesn't make it true."_

" _But seeing it makes it twice! So there!" Yahiko heaved a camel-brown, leather luggage from beneath the bed. It was as big as he was and twice as a heavy. "Money in here?!"_

_Nagato emerged from the bathroom, weary with his best friend's antics. For someone as witty as he was, Yahiko sure said some stupid things. "Money belongs in wallets. Told you the plan wasn't supposed to go this way. You and I were supposed to hold him down while Konan did all the work."_

" _Then we'll just-" Yahiko grunted as he stood the luggage on its spine. He grinned upon noticing the wheels attached at the bottom. "We'll just hold his stuff hostage. Maybe we'll even find something that we can pawn."_

_Nagato nodded. "Nn, nn. Then…" He glanced towards the door where two pairs of shoes sat, one pair of geta and one pair of crocodile loafers. He darted over, bent down and grabbed them both. "I'll take his shoes hostage, too."_

_Yahiko's upper lip tugged sideways as he craned his head. "Ehhh? Why?"_

_It didn't matter his mood, his mindset, Nagato's smile always made him look pure. "Out here these are valuable too. Imagine him slipping and falling in the mud, right?"_

_Yahiko rolled his eyes as he got behind the luggage and pushed it towards the door._

_They made it inches before they could turn the corner._

" _HEY!"_

_Yahiko's body flooded with adrenaline. That white-haired foreigner spotted them. "Shit!" Yahiko shoved at the luggage with all his might, with Nagato helping shortly after._

_They pedaled as fast as they could. Luckily the first floor was one big square with no dividers, no obstacles, and they immediately caught up with Konan at the entrance. She scrambled behind them and helped push the luggage out into the rain. The wheels got caught in the mud._

" _Dammit! Everyone! Carry it!" Yahiko ordered. Five little hands scooped up the leather case, and lifted it onto their heads. Their hearts pounding their lungs breathless, they charged through the rain._

_Nagato stole a glance over his shoulder. That man was chasing after them, the only thing slowing him down was the slippery mud. 'You really shouldn't be here. You should just go away.' Nagato, who held the shoes scooped to his chest, unfurled his right arm and hurled the geta and loafers far from the both of them._

" _No!" The wooden geta were the furthest thing from Jiraiya's mind. "Grandpa's loafers!" The shoes had been defiled; thick, brown sediment dulling its polish and staining its shearling lining. He dashed up to them and crouched down in the mud with all the reverence and mourning of child with a dying pet. He gathered the shoes to his chest and threw his head to the sky. "GRAAAANDPAAAA! I failed you! Crocodiles can swim, but your shoes caaaaan't!"_

_The luggage tumbled off their heads as the three orphans gaped._

" _Is he serious?" Muttered Nagato._

" _The hell is he doing?" Yahiko clutched the handle of the luggage, as if he might lose it at any moment._

_Konan's chest twisted. She had no keepsakes to remember her parents by, but she often desired to have them. She shot Nagato a glare before darting off towards the strange man. Taking notice of her presence, she experienced a sense of warmth when he looked up at her. With his bottom lip sticking out and his brows knitted high into his forehead, he looked like nothing more than a big baby. She crouched down and touched the shoes. "Can they really not be restored?"_

" _They can." Jiraiya grabbed her, flipped her so her back was pressed to his front and he kept a firm grip around her shoulders. "Gimme back my stuff, or your little friend will suffer!" He pointed a muddy loafer against her temple._

_Yahiko and Nagato gaped harder, before Yahiko shook himself from this man's absurd spell. "THAT'S A SHOE, STUPID!"_

_Jiraiya's lips pulled into his cheeks as a smug expression obscured the simpleton he had been moments before. He gripped the bottom of the shoe and pressed the hole against Konan's mouth and nose. Her eyes snapped open as she clutched at his arm, squirming and squealing in revulsion. "Get over here now! I can do this all day!"_

_Konan pushed the shoe away when his grip had slackened. Her neck and cheeks were red, her eyes straining with tears. "Y,Yahiko-kun! Do as he says! It smells like dead fish!"_

After that, they had spent all of their time with Jiraiya. Konan stopped working at the brothel because he kept her and the boys fed every time they visited him. They opened up about their experiences living in this country and the city, giving him a unique place to base his thesis.

Three weeks later and he couldn't bring himself to leave without them. The thought that they might not survive another year frightened him. Were he to come back, well, he would want something to come back to. He couldn't fix this country, he could only be the first step to bringing awareness to it.

Most people would think that a budding novelist who wrote for children and teens, who had a heart big enough to rescue three urchins from another country and be a single father to them would have a wholesome inner life to match. But Jiraiya was a lawless man in his own way. And though he tried his best, his home was anything but prepared.

There were times he left his smutty manuscripts out, the ones he published under a pseudonym in between installments of the  _Gutsy_  series. After a while they stopped questioning it. It put food on the table, after all.

When Konan couldn't use the bathroom she shared with the boys, she would run into Jiraiya's bathroom only to find a  _gravure_  magazine out in the open, and a sour, bodily stench emanating from the trash can. Other times, his 'videos' got mixed in with theirs. Heaven knows how that happened; (Later on, she learned from Yahiko that he had been the one 'borrowing' and hiding Jiraiya's smut, out of his own insatiable curiosity).

These vices and errors aside, Jiraiya certainly did try. In many ways, he was a perfect guardian, and in the same amount of ways, he was perfectly unsuitable to the position.

When Konan turned eleven, her knowledge of carnality had expanded. By the time she turned thirteen, her mind was abuzz with slithering curiosity and a limerence which dazzled her soul.

She had fallen for Yahiko, whom she was forced to consider her adoptive brother.

_She couldn't wait anymore. This had become so ingrained into her. It neither shocked her nor confused her. Was she desensitized? Hard to say. Desensitization usually meant a lack of interest, not the acceptance of it, right?_

_They had so much fun tonight at the summer festival. She knew Yahiko had been staring at her all night, from the string of white roses dangling from her sidebun, to her turquoise, silver and royal yellow yukata, she felt so sure that he desired her. She kept the yukata on, just for him, as she tiptoed out of her bedroom to his._

_Her skin tingled from her scalp to her toes as she gazed at his sleeping form, lips parted and drooling. Just the thought of finally being close to him, to feel his breath on her breast, his strong arms around her slender body, she felt as though she would cry at any moment, just from the relief of it all._

_Her first love._

_The brave boy who had found her huddled beneath a broken awning outside an abandoned flower shop. Who had offered out his hand, told her they should stick together._

_Konan approached his bedside, making sure that she was eclipsed in the moonlight, and nudged him awake. The surprise, the blush that spread up from his neck, it lit a fire inside her. She tugged at her obi and let the folds of her yukata drift open. "I love you, Yahiko. Did you know? I think I've loved you since I first met you."_

He had been dazed at first. Her confession intoxicating his pubescent brain. Then he had emitted a hushed shout, one that scolded her, asked if she was crazy. He told her to cover herself. Told her they couldn't because Nagato and Jiraiya would know. It wouldn't just be awkward as hell, it'd probably be pretty bad.

" _But you want to, right? I won't make any noise."_

Konan always wondered if she had corrupted him; she had gotten her way that night, and every night thereafter. When they turned sixteen, they were dying to leave the house, to be together forever. They went through with it. They eloped. No heads up, no goodbyes and no letter.

They disappeared.

Yahiko passed away when he was nineteen. Bled out in an alleyway half a block from his place of work. Police said it was wrong place, wrong time.

Konan never lifted her head after Jiraiya and Nagato had been called in to identify the body. She never said a word, and she never shed a tear. In his discontent, in his rage, Nagato had blamed her. Called her dirty. Called her a slut. He just hated her for abandoning him, for making Yahiko abandon him. She had no idea what the past three years had been for him, but it seemed she had forced a wedge between him and Jiraiya as well.

Konan had thought everything was fine. Five  _Gutsy_  books had been published. The first anime adaptation had been teased. She thought Jiraiya had been joyfully productive. Instead it was all he could do to deny his woe. Nagato must have felt neglected during that time. Even though the books were in a way about him, he was the real thing, and it was as if he wasn't good enough.

The dark aura of resentment had turned a once happy home into a prison. Every time she and Nagato were in the same room together, it was like a thunderclap. The once quiet and timid Nagato suddenly couldn't stay silent anymore. Konan took his verbal abuse on the chin. She was so withdrawn that she questioned if she was ever in pain. However, it was Jiraiya who couldn't take his antagonizing which only lead to him receiving it as well.

Then one day the fighting stopped, but not for the better.

It'd gotten to the point that Konan found herself being dragged across the house. Nagato didn't want to see her face again, he demanded she stay out of his life as he tried to push her out the front door.

_The floor thundered as Jiraiya ran up to him. He circled his arms beneath Nagato's shoulders, shouting at him to leave her alone as he hauled Nagato away from her crumpled form._

_"I'm tired of this! I thought I taught you better! Nagato, you," Jiraiya faltered and Nagato snapped away from his grip. "You're the one who needs to leave."_

_Nagato bent forward, his shoulders shook with a puff of laughter. "Really? Me? You're going to kick me out? That's,That's going to look real good on the tabloids tomorrow, don't you think? You know what else'll look good? No? How about an account of our childhood here, how at thirteen I began to regularly hear slutty moans from my adopted sister's room. For all I knew it was you who was visiting her nightly-"_

" _That's enough, Nagato!"_

" _She, the nine year old whore who came onto you at the brothel house. And who's to say you didn't adopt two boys just throw suspicion off of you. Or that you didn't leave your porn around the house just so you could groom her for your lust. Even if you had the heart to sue me, you wouldn't win," Nagato put his foot to the side of Konan's head and shoved her down. He laughed like a child discovering what salt does to a snail. "Do you see this?" He pushed his toes into her ribs. "Konan, are you even alive?"_

_She felt like she was stranded in the middle of Iron country. In her mind, Jiraiya was bleeding out on that snow mere feet from her as Yahiko had on the unforgiving asphalt. There was nothing she could do for final man in her life that she cared for._

_Konan felt pressure against the back of her head. It pushed her face down into the entryway and held her there. Nagato's cold, desolate voice rumbled above her as he continued to threaten Jiraiya with his schemes. "Your reputation is too important to those kids and those lifelong fans of yours, right? Then you better mind your own business."_

A sordidness had consumed the home and all the sounds within it. Jiraiya, who so needed to protect his stupor-afflicted Konan, had been forced to ignore the thumps and thuds that echoed throughout the home, like a child who shut his eyes and covered his ears.

One day, Jiraiya had finally gathered the words to speak to Konan directly. Even before Nagato's extortions, even when he had pulled Nagato away from her daily, Jiraiya had never spoke to her. He had spent those last seven months avoiding her, tangled up in his own shame.

She immediately blew all his preparations away.

_Bruises and welts marked her white skin like a garden of blue roses and bee stings as she sat atop her bed, hugging her legs to her chest. Neither had the heart to look at the other._

" _There's an old proverb that you really like, isn't there? 'A frog at the bottom of a well knows nothing of the great ocean'. You came to our well, and brought us into your great ocean. But now, it's as if we've dragged you into our own ocean… And I think you're sinking."_

_Jiraiya, as he sat at the edge of her bed, bent forward and hid his face in hands. His shoulders trembled but he didn't make a single noise. Jiraiya was a man incapable of giving up. He believed in the power of empathy, that in pain true kindness is born. Why wasn't it working? Why wasn't he enough?_

_Konan pondered over him. How had he felt when they disappeared? Was he scared? Did he feel like a failure? Did he think they didn't love him back?_

_How did he feel now? One of his kids was dead. The other lost. The last filled with hate. Did he want to give up? It must be frightening to have your whole self-image ripped away like that._

_She told him it was alright, both she and Nagato were adults now. He wouldn't have to worry about them anymore._

Konan placed her now empty glass onto the table. Her whole body felt empty, as if she had been fabricated out the very thousands of manuscripts Jiraiya had toiled over. And the words therein were her secrets, the things that she buried so deep inside that she could not possibly begin to express them.

She couldn't take her eyes off the blinking light.

_Everything was settled. Jiraiya's gravesite had been purchased, his tombstone ready for engraving. And Nagato was on a new rampage._

_A name neither of them recognized had appeared on Jiraiya's will. This five year old boy would receive a portion of the royalties, just as an illegitimate child would receive only so much._

_Nagato's frail yet stony face had acquired a sneer that Konan believed permanent. As he emerged from the trust lawyer's office, he stopped beside her, caging her with a single demeaning glance. "I'm all you have now. So from now on, if I need something, you get it done. Got it?"_

" _Sure."_

" _We're not done yet, not even close."_

_Konan tilted her head at him. "What do you mean?"_

" _You don't see it? We just conned that old man from the moment we met him! We're the richest orphans from here to sunrise! That's some ungodly luck, no- perhaps, it's destiny. See, Konan, I have so many ideas now. It used to be Yahiko, and then yours- You got us here, but now I'm-!"_

_Konan's scowl faded into concern. The rambling, the gleam in his eye, the manic smile that ghosted his pained expression. Nagato was unhinged._

" _I'm going to become God. It's my destiny."_

Softly at first, the sound of approaching footsteps gained volume as a naked young man emerged from the hall.

"You've been awake all this time?" The young man grinned as he rubbed the back of his head. "Man, I thought I was doing a good job. Instead, I was the one who passed out." He slid onto the sunken sofa, and flashed her a lascivious grin. "Damn, I still can't get enough of how you look in that dress. So obscene." He shivered in delight. Konan forgot his name, but was attracted to his boyish, cocky attitude.

Perhaps that was her type. Perhaps, she just liked them younger.

* * *

Naruto's fainting spells dropped off over the course of a very isolated week of rest and careful monitoring. It's been two days without incident and he was overcome as he took that first bite of outside food. His cheeks warmed, his eyes watered as he savored the familiar juicy crunch of a katsu sandwich. His insides felt absolutely barren, as if you could strike his gut like a drum, or whatever he supposed was left of it.

Obito slouched in the plastic chair, his cheek resting in his left palm. "What, they couldn't even feed you  _omuraisu_?" On that note, he hadn't expected to come in and see Naruto with his head completely shaven. He must have hated having the right side only where his stitches were.

Naruto wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, his eyes half-lidded in lament. "I puked. A lot. And when all they gonna give you is rice congee till you can keep food down, well, it's kinda tough to wanna try, y'know? They saw I'd been nursing the same bowl for half a day and then they asked if I wanted to try some medication."

Obito pursed his lips. "I see." His mind ran with possibilities as to what Naruto could be on, if he had in fact tried a few before finding one that didn't give him awful side-effects, but Obito pushed his personal experiences aside. His interview had yet to take off from the ground. "Now, Uzumaki, you sure you don't remember anything? Why you were there? Who you were with?" Receiving two shakes of the head, Obito pushed. "Have you at least thought about who might want to hurt you?" Only someone with something or someone to hide would lack that curiosity.

Naruto shook his head and reached into the paper bag for another sandwich. "I can think of one or two who'd wanna hurt me, but I can't think of anyone that'd wanna kill me."

Obito's lips pursed again, and his brows furrowed. "Have you told anyone?"

"Eh? 'Bout what?"

Obito shifted forward and formed a steeple with his hands between his knees. "That there are people hurting you."

Naruto drummed his fingers against his food as he looked away. "Oh, not anymore."

Obito glowered, stifling his sigh. "You wanna take a look at yourself again?"

Naruto lowered the half-eaten sandwich to his lap as his jaw locked sideways along with the rebuttals in his throat.

This wasn't supposed to happen again. For all the times he thought Mizuki would go too far and Scar Face would just let him, he had been so thankful to get out of there, and thanked every day he woke up not experiencing that again.

It never should have been his best friend to do this to him, not when Haku had suffered the same way back then.

Even though Naruto knew Haku hadn't let him die, he still crossed that line. He went back on everything and Naruto didn't even know why.

Every day he awoke in an amnesiac panic, he was overcome with the fear again as he recalled Haku that night. To have the sort of love Naruto still carried towards him to be corrupted at the same time, to have every warm memory of Haku's face scratched out, it left him absolutely sick. Because if he ever saw him again, he wasn't sure which would win out, the love or the fear. He might just freeze up again.

Obito spoke up. "Okay, so you weren't attacked by your previous abusers but instead by someone close to you, am I correct?"

Naruto shrugged.

"You can trust me, y'know," Obito pointed to the black cloth obscuring the upper left half of his face. "This happened when I was your age."

Naruto couldn't eat anymore. Everything good had lost its flavor and his belly was suddenly full of morbid curiosity. "Can I see?"

The sheer nonchalance with which Naruto approached his disfigurement made Obito smile. Even if perhaps the boy was just asking because he didn't believe him, it was still a different reaction than the norm. It was also telling of something else, and Obito began to reform his original plans for the little blood sack.

Obito pushed the blindfold up and what he revealed made Naruto lean in for a closer look. "Holy shit."

Obito was missing his left ear. From the left edge of his jaw up to his forehead was a variegation of pasty pink and off-white scars. They marred his toughened skin in jagged, splotchy swaths with no uniformity in how they were inflicted. In the center of this destroyed terrain was a square beige adhesive covering the abyssal hole of what Naruto assumed to be an empty eye socket. Obito tugged the blindfold back in place.

Naruto rested a hand against his stomach. "Yeah, they sealed me up good. It looks really gross, too. Like someone stuck me with a steel beater and turned it on." Naruto traced a spiral over his abdomen, starting from his navel outwards. He frowned as he came to wonder if he was disfigured now too.

Obito cupped his knees and pushed away from the plastic chair. He reached into his right pants pocket and pulled out a small silver case. Inside were business cards.

"I'll do you a favor for now, because I understand that you're still scared," He presented the card with the top corners pinched beneath both thumbs and forefingers. Naruto reached out with one hand, then floundered at his mistake before accepting the card with both hands. "I'll hold back from questioning this person. To that end, I won't make an arrest. But when you want it done, you can contact me."

Naruto eyed the words on the card before glancing up. His lips parted before closing shut.

Sergeant Uchiha Obito had already left.

* * *

Naruto sank back against his pillows and scrutinized the carbon black homepage on his smartphone.

He hadn't bothered with the officer's card until his boredom has risen with the sun's setting. When he grabbed it, a second card had fallen away, one that was completely black on both sides. There was a hidden website address on the back that was only visible at a low angle.

Summer break had begun, with Naruto missing the last three days of First Term, and he had no texts, no call logs, no voicemails. The nurses said no one came to visit him either. He felt like he was in exile, like there was something terribly wrong with him and everyone had just been waiting for the perfect excuse to ditch him.

Naruto wiped his left eye as he pressed the  **ENTER**  button in the middle of the homepage.

It was a chat room, just as black and minimalist as the homepage and the business card. His thumbs tapped away.

 **Kyūbi: Hello?**  Naruto blinked.  _What, is that really my handle? Can't change that shit?_  He played around trying to find a settings wheel until the chat room blew up with bell tones.

**Yonbi: Greetings.**

**Nanabi: NEW PERSON! NEW PERSON! HIIII!**

**Nibi: Hello.**

**Sanbi: Welcome to the chat room.**

**Kyūbi: I'm sensing a theme here. Where am I?**

**Sanbi: Honestly, I'm not too sure how to describe this place.**

**Nanabi: Yeah, same, but I'm having a lot of fun!**

**Kyūbi: Doing what?**

**Nanabi: Meeting new people, silly!**

**Nanabi: Everyone here is super polite. I'm really isolated, so it's hard for me to stay away from forums and whatnot, but I'd nearly sworn off altogether until I found this place.**

**Kyūbi: Sounds like that woulda been incredibly lonely.**

**Nanabi: Yeah. I prolly wouldn't have lasted a day had I really quit anyways.**

**Kyūbi: Why're you isolated?**

**Nanabi: …**

**Nanabi: My caretaker is a hikikomori. Yeah, sounds weird, right? Like, 'wouldn't a person like that need taking care of?' Last time I snuck out, he absolutely broke down and I couldn't bring myself to stray again.**

**Nanabi: What about you? Are you isolated?**

Naruto felt odd hearing all this. Like he were sinking yet rising to the surface at the same time. Here was someone, who honestly sounded like his age, in a really shitty situation; and though it pained him, it also relieved him.

He had someone to talk to.

**Kyūbi: You have no idea.**

* * *

It was the following afternoon and one of the nurses had been sweet on him. He sat in bed flanked by an array of snack bags and boxed candy, his thumbs flying across his keyboard.

**Kyūbi: I'm sitting here in the hospital and NO ONE has come to see me. It's been ELEVEN DAYS. Summer's started, I don't have a fuckin friend to count on. I'm honestly getting fed up with the adults in my life. They're all shitheads one way or another. I think if I ever see any of them again I'm just gonna tell em to go straight to hell.**

**Nibi: That's really harsh. Are you sure there isn't one adult you can count on?**

**Yonbi: The child's just venting.**

**Nibi: I realize that, but...**

**Nanabi: I wish I could hang out with you, Kyūbi.**

**Kyūbi: What if you did? I wanna hang out too. Is it really that bad to rebel against this guy? You must be secretly disappointed in him right? I'm surprised as hell you don't resent him yet.**

**Nanabi: It's hard to describe but it's just not worth it.**

**Nanabi: I don't want him to think I'm ungrateful.**

Naruto hated that word. That goddamn imprisoning word. You just can't talk to people throw that word around, you can't get them to understand.

**Kyūbi: You should live with me.**

**Nanabi: EH?!**

**Kyūbi: Yeah. Live with me and then you won't have to go through that again. He's a shut in, so he won't even be able to go after you. He'll just rot alone.**

**Nanabi: …**

**Nanabi: Kyūbi, that's a really awful thing to say.**

**Kyūbi: Sorry, guess I'm not in a good place right now.**

**Nanabi: I appreciate your concern for my wellbeing tho.**

**Nanabi: That said, have you received your first mission yet?**

**Kyūbi: Eh? Mission?**

**Sanbi: The admin will PM a task or challenge and you get to record your experience and share it.**

**Kyūbi: Share it, huh?** Naruto thought that was oddly interactive. But he was intrigued. He had yet to see anyone else's videos.

**Kyūbi: How many missions you guys done?**

**Nibi: 18**

**Yonbi: 7**

**Sanbi: 3. Truth be told I am very busy. Also the challenges, interesting as they are, are rather esoteric.**

**Kyūbi: dumb it down plz**

**Sanbi: Ugh. The challenges seem random.**

**Kyūbi: Nibi, do they seem random? Casual over here is being presumptuous.**

**Sanbi: I said I'm busy!**

**Nanabi: I've completed 32 missions.**

**Kyūbi: WTF**

**Nanabi: Duh. I have a lot of time on my hands.**

**Nanabi: Let's see… the first few feel unconnected, but the more you play along, the more you learn about yourself. So I guess it's kind of a social experiment? Eh but I guess something like that would be relevant to researchers.**

**Nibi: Maybe researchers are following our chats. Maybe they created this website.**

**Kyūbi: meh i don't get it. But I'm interested. Got nothing else to do. And if it means going beyond chat, that's cool with me.**

Naruto wouldn't get his first mission until the following morning when he awoke from an unusual bell tone.

**Sender: Admin**

**Header: Mission No. 1**

" **Face what scares you the most and share it."**

_A fear challenge? Alright._

Naruto climbed halfway out of the bed before remembering his partial nudity. The gown would not work on the roof, plus it was not the impression he wanted to give them. He jammed the nurse call button and hollered into the solitude. "Hey! Can I get some pants?!"

* * *

The nurses had generously provided him the smallest set of spare evergreen scrubs, which even then hung loosely over his skinny frame,l. Then he had snuck up onto the rooftop.

The late morning air was humid with the promise of light rain and the sun hit his paled skin like a warm welcome back.

Beyond the net wire fence that lined the perimeter of the rooftop was the skyline of the inner city, jagged and repetitive like the rhythm strip on his heartbeat monitor.

Airplanes drifted across the sky, leaving a crosshatch of thin vapor trails. A stray breeze uncurled a trail and it resembled half a laurel leaf.

Naruto strode up to the net wire fence and hooked his left fingers over the diamond-shaped wire. He peered down and pursed his lips as he watched the cars shift up and down the six-lane street, resembling nothing more than drifting grains of wild rice across a dark stream.

There was no way he could fall from this height. He would have to be thrown. Being up high and alone didn't seem to trigger his fear. He only got nervous when someone was behind him.

"Guess  _this_  isn't my greatest fear…"

* * *

The Children's Ward was a contrarian sort of place, it's cheery veneer masking the quiet desolation of delicate, sickly youth.

In Naruto's search to find something physical, something external to record, he stumbled upon a locked door with a very small window above the handle.

Inside he caught sight of a boy no bigger than he was with a shock of short, crimson hair. That was all he could see, for the boy stood stock still in the left corner facing into it, as if locked in conversation with his shadow.

Naruto pressed record on his camera app and lifted the lens towards the window, just in case something interesting might happen.

The minutes ticked by in utter silence and the boy hadn't moved at all, not a twitch nor slight shuffle of his feet.

 _Creepy little fucker_.

Naruto switched to self-portrait mode and moved between the door and his smartphone. He whispered. "Hey, I'm still trying to figure out what scares me the most, but what about you guys? Does this little weirdo give you chills, too? What's he even doing, am I right?"

Naruto nearly dropped his phone when he glanced up at the top right corner of his screen. Beady blue eyes surrounded by rings of black stared over his shoulder, clearly aware of Naruto. The look on his brow-less face was blank and icy, and Naruto sprinted as far as he could back to his room.

When Naruto climbed into his bed, he played the video over and over again, unsure if it was what he wanted to share. Was there something wrong with that kid?  _Hospital. Duh._  What was he being treated for? Why was he just staring into the corner forever like that?

Naruto made sure to delete his disparaging comments from the latter half of the video and submitted the first six minutes of just the boy.

**Nibi: That's so disheartening.**

**Sanbi: What's wrong with him?**

**Kyūbi: dunno**

**Nanabi: Are you scared of him? I'm confused.**

**Kyūbi: I was at first.**

**Kyūbi: But then I began to relate to him.**

**Kyūbi: So what I'm saying is, what I'm most scared of is...**

* * *

Sergeant Obito hovered in the doorway as Naruto, dressed in a fresh change of clothes, pocketed his phone and wallet. The boy was grimacing like a reformed convict reluctant to rejoin society. The way he kept his head down and his shoulders hunched said as much.

Naruto stopped beside the officer and eyed him warily. "So you're escorting me home?"

"Yup."

Proceeding down the hall in uneasy silence, the lobby came into view and vacillating around the corner was a young man with golden brown skin, brown hair pulled in a high ponytail and a dark scar that ran the breadth of his nasal bridge.

Naruto stiffened to a stop as their eyes connected. This interested Obito.

Iruka jogged up to them, stopping a few feet short as he considered Naruto's appearance with shallow concern, as if the adhered plaster keeping his nose in place, or the sixteen stitches along the right side of his scalp, or the large patches of greenish-blue bruises that mottled his face were nonexistent.

"So you really were here, after all."

Naruto pursed his lips, glaring so venomously at this man he might have been willing him to dissolve where he stood.

Iruka's gaze moved up and his eyes widened in recognition. He whiplashed into a curt bow. "I take it you're taking him home, then." He had so many questions he didn't know where to begin. No, he didn't think he could begin at all.

"Yes. Who might you be?"

"I'm his homeroom teacher."

"I see. Well, goodbye then." Obito placed a hand atop Naruto's head and lead him into a shallow bow before resuming their exit. Naruto slapped his hand away and grumbled. "Was he one of those people you mentioned?"

Though Obito had kept his voice low, he had been within earshot and Iruka spun around fast, his dark eyes flashing with indignance.

"I'm sorry, what did you mean by that exactly?" Iruka considered the protective hand that Obito held against Naruto's thin shoulders and he took one step forward. "I never laid a  _finger_  on him!" Iruka redirected his scowl onto Naruto, the grasp that he had on himself diminishing with every paranoid thought. "That's so typical of you, isn't it Naruto?! You're so greedy for attention you'll slander anyone's name, won't you?!" Iruka's eyes snapped up to Obito. "Whatever he said, he's lying!"

Naruto trembled beneath Obito's hand, his upper lip curled over his teeth like an angry dog. His eyes glimmered with unshed tears.

Teachers like him weren't unique in the slightest. So over their heads and drowning in their own inexperience that the very youth they were meant to nurture were in fact treated like sharks. Just another tired example that the world would never change, not in his lifetime nor Naruto's, nor the newborns birthed tomorrow forced to feel the painful brush of cold air.

Obito turned away and nudged Naruto to resume walking. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. Good day, Sensei."

* * *

"Is he always like that?"

Naruto sat curled against the passenger window, scowling as the crucifix-like power lines and unending row of two-story houses rushed by. "Ever since I was four."

As Obito stole a glance, he was reminded of those countless days spent inside the Principal's office, of the condescending tones his teachers took against him, and the ignorance with which they had written him off.

Because he had often been tardy, they thought he must've been up to no good. Because he was up to no good, he must have been a delinquent who thought he could stroll in whenever he felt like it. Because he was a delinquent, no one respected him, no one really gave him a chance.

His mundane stories of random good deeds were treated as the delusions of a  _chuunibyou_. His desperation to be accepted answered with a hellish junior high school life of being exploited and used. His words ignored as if he never spoke, his existence shrugged off as if he were a passing fly. What few things in life that hadn't disappointed him never lasted long enough to provide relief, were never strong enough to slap his eyes and scream 'THERE IS HOPE!'.

He was the cause for a lot Tokonoha's recent pain. He was absolutely the source of Naruto's. He might even be the source of that self-righteous teacher's pain.

But he couldn't trust fate to steer people's lives anymore, he couldn't just sit back and wait for that moment on his deathbed when suddenly everything 'makes sense', that it was 'worth it all along'.

No, far as Obito was concerned, he was the control group, and the populace the experiment.

* * *

The moment Naruto sank face-first onto his old sofa, his smartphone sounded with that unusual bell tone.

He pulled it out from his back pocket, swiped around, and with one-eyed disinterest, he read the contents of his private message.

**Sender: Admin**

**Header: Mission No. 5**

" **You have a role today, but you must choose. Will you play The Hero or The Villain?"**

Naruto had found out by the third mission that replying directly to the Admin was permissible. That threw Sanbi off when he told him. No wonder he was a casual, he had gotten stuck and stopped playing.

**Kyūbi: The Hero obviously.**

**Admin: Then you must convince them.**

**Kyūbi: That im the hero?**

**Admin: Can you do it?**

**Kyūbi: You'll hafta wait n see, won't ya?**

Naruto exited chat and sighed, closing his eyes as he floated in the soft nothingness of his first day back home.

He had no idea how he was supposed to complete this mission.

There was only two more weeks of Summer Break.

* * *

Haku had nightmares of red eyes observing him from a distance. It'd start off as one pair floating in a black fog between the trees as Haku treaded a misty path of inlaid white stone. The day drew to night and the night flashed into day in a rapid cycle, and the red-eyed spectators grew around him beneath this disorientating transition. They grew and they growled and he ran; he ran into the mist for an eternity.

They knew what he did.

And they wouldn't let him forget.

Haku had been summoned to the Kumicho's personal quarters, feeling like he was following that exact same path from his nightmares, feeling like the malicious stares at his back from his superiors were possessed by those red eyes.

He bit the inside of his bottom lip and kept his head high. As Zori pushed the door open for him, Haku caught sight of short, onyx black hair, black cloth obscuring the left half of his face, and a light blue shirt. He knelt in a  _seiza_  before Gato, his white gloved hands resting atop his thighs. As he turned to acknowledge Haku, the fourteen year old glimpsed a pale yellow badge on his chest.

The world screeched to a stop and Haku choked. Sasuke's face flashed in place of this man's.

_Code No. 1: "Do not have any unnecessary contact with the authorities."_

Gato barked his name and Haku jolted back into reality. "My god, have you no manners? The police are our  _friends_." The creases in Gato's face deepened, taking in shadow like a gutter took rainwater, his forced grin aggrieved.

Haku quickly got to his knees and pressed his forehead to the floor. "My deepest apologies, Kumicho."

Though Naruto had given him clarity, the desire to live hurt so much worse than his former desire to nonexist. He floated between the soft relief that he was loved and accepted, and the searing knives that poked at his skin, reminding him of the hypocrite and sinner that he was. Everyday he asked himself if this was worth it, and everyday his dependency on Zabuza grew like an icy, iron weight in his chest.

The floor creaked. The police officer raised off his ankles and drew to full height. "Yuki Haku, would you come with me for a little bit?" His voice was cold, distant. Just like Sasuke's. Were all Uchiha this way?

When Haku got to his feet, the Sergeant's hand against his back as he ushered him towards the door, he turned and address Gato one last time. "He's not in any trouble, I assure you."

Gato's face was stony, his frown severe. His dark, circle sunglasses glinted a dangerous light, and replied with a promise. "We'll see about that."

* * *

Following Obito into an empty hall far from Gato and his various offices, Haku scratched and scraped at the underside of his fingernails, his dark eyes grim and haunted.

Obito place a gloved hand over his to still his fidgeting, and Haku froze at his light touch. Haku parted his hands and lamented. His fingernails were white and clean, just as they should be. Naruto's blood had washed off long ago.

"He holds no grudge against you," Obito began, his thoughts turning wistful and chagrined.  _But I wonder if he has limits in that regard where Sensei had none._  Sometimes looking back on things, Obito still admired Minato for his compassion. Other times it felt downright condescending, as if Obito hadn't been worth the passion required to be hated. Even in hatred, he would be remembered strongly. Even as the source of one's grudge, he would get to receive those harsh and honest feelings, instead of lukewarm indifference. "In fact, he's pretending not to remember anything."

Haku bit down hard on his bottom lip, irritated as tears streaked his cheeks.

"What were you two doing there?"

Haku palmed his eyes and stemmed his emotions with a shuddery breath. "He wanted to see the stars."

 _Really? That's it?_  Obito pushed a sigh through his nose. Perhaps he had gotten worked up over nothing. The security footage showed only the two of them, and he couldn't imagine either of these dumb brats would know a thing about the God Tree, let alone believe it if they heard. Sometimes Obito himself wasn't perfectly sure anymore.

Obito clapped Haku's back. "Thanks," A few steps and Obito palmed his forehead, an inappropriate smile gracing his sullen face. He turned, retrieving a plastic bag from his front pants pocket. Haku's heart thudded as he laid eyes on his abandoned stiletto knife. "Did you want this back?"

Haku stared at him agape, as if the Sergeant had offered him a stick of ice cream.  _A dirty cop?_  Then again, should he be surprised? Though Gato was livid by the visit, perhaps he had still made an exception. Haku whipped his head side to side, denying to reclaim such a heavy reminder.

Obito's smile flipped as he took on a ponderous expression. "Want me to destroy it, then?"

_Yep. Dirty cop._

But before Haku could utter a semblance of a reply, "On second thought…" Obito pocketed the weapon and resumed his exit, cruelly withholding his intentions.

Haku's hands balled up at his side, clenching and relaxing over and over in his unbreathing hesitation. Fresh tears fell from Haku's eyes as his mind caught up with his hammering heart.

_What just happened?_

Gazing into middle space, Haku absently raked his left hand through his hair. His fingertips brushed against those of an intruder's.

Haku stilled as rough fingers snaked through his hair. The dirty, peppery stench of cigarettes drifted over him before the hot, acrid stench of Waraji's breath. Those rough, blunted fingers stroked the back of his white neck, up and down, up and down.

Haku regretted telling Zabuza that he didn't need to hover around him anymore.

"Y'know, Haku, it's believed that beauty fades as you come of age." Waraji fisted his hair and tugged him close, forcing the fourteen year old flush against his front. He spoke low against his ear. "That is to say, the way you are now really is no different from a young girl…" Haku's eyes snapped wide as a finger traced the inseam of his pants, the horrid sensation searing him to his core. "... but the boss requests your presence."

Waraji released him with a shove. He kicked him and Haku stumbled and started walking, his hands gravitating to clutch himself just like before, as if that would stop his skin from feeling so dirty. He held back, forcing his arms at his sides, his chin held high. He would not give into Waraji's feigned mental penetrations.

* * *

Naruto's clothes didn't fit him like they used to.

He had lost thirteen pounds over the course of his stay, and he was afraid to return to school. He was afraid of the inevitable stares, of Kabuto's disappointment at his long list of visible setbacks.

Could he even go back to training once he got the staples out? Once the plaster came off? He hadn't made much progress to begin with. His hill just got that much taller, that much steeper, and his boulder that much larger.

Hiding within the confines of a saffron cotton hoodie, and black jogging pants, his face obscured by a medical mask and his striking eyes behind a pair of green goggles, he ventured back into the real world, dead set on completing that mission in style.

* * *

Sakura's small, ivory hand fit nicely in his; a simple, perfume-laden comfort he had long deserved yet been deprived of since they began their relationship.

As Sasuke stole a glance, he wondered if any of this between them was his fault in some way. Amidst her distance, her ambiguous bouts of disloyalty, she had grown cryptic and coy. Yet at this moment she seemed content, even bashful, as they strode through Other Worlds Amusement Park.

She wasn't still growing into herself, was she? Sasuke knew who she was from the very beginning, even if she had no idea. She was competent and smart, strong-willed but restrained. She was sweetness with fangs. Her minor flaws were superfluous against the bigger picture. He could deal with her vanity, with her occasional haughtiness. These particular things amused him.

Sasuke considered himself someone who knows what he wants. Though one might advise against dating one of your fangirls, Sasuke felt that Sakura's feelings had outlasted all the rest, that someone like her was worth his time and attention.

Did he really not communicate this enough? Did she not believe it herself?

These past two weeks spent catching up on lost time had softened the stings that her 'friendship' with Lee had inflicted. Right now, happily, it was the furthest thing from his mind.

Sasuke froze. Sakura's arm tugged behind her, then she stopped to eye him, her delicate brows furrowing. "Sasuke-kun?"

There amongst the food stands and balloons stood an unwanted character, his effeminate face hidden behind a white kabuki mask with red markings.

"Just give me a second Sakura-chan, I'll be right back."

Sasuke sprinted off, giving chase as Haku turned and ran, leading him deeper into the park. Sasuke sped through the crowds surrounding the game stalls like a salmon bulleting upstream, and he paused again, scrutinizing where Haku had dashed into: A mirror house.

Sasuke approached calmly, unimpressed by the childish scenario he found himself in.

The sunlit trees and chatter of patrons, the appetizing comfort of takoyaki all disappeared. The mirror house was dark save for the mirrors themselves. Sasuke stifled a snort as he gazed at the multitude of varied angled reflections of the masked Haku before him.

"Were you dying to try this out since you were eight or what?" Sasuke snarked.

Nothing.

Sasuke ventured further in, keeping in mind how the reflections moved across the frames, calculating in his head where Haku was most likely standing. Then he again, he could just ignore the mirrors and follow the path. Not like Haku could disappear into and jump back out of the things.

That eerily soothing voice carried a vehement bitterness. "I did what you told me to."

Sasuke stopped and pushed his hands into his front pockets. Naruto had missed the last three days of First Term. Sasuke hadn't the guts to seek him out, the shame of being called lonely clinging to him much like Ino used to do, yet it was more taunting than flirty. "Good. I expected as much."

"So why did an Uchiha show up before my Kumicho?!"

Sasuke shrugged and smirked. "Must be a coincidence." Sasuke blinked as goosebumps ran up along his back and arms. The reflections disappeared. Did that loser run outside?

" _Ohh, this nostalgic, isn't it?"_  The voice of an older woman drifted from the entrance, causing Sasuke to freeze. Two pair of footsteps hastened. As expected, a middle aged woman and her same aged husband had come in here. Sasuke curtly bowed as they passed him by, their reflections and idle chatter disappearing the further in they reached.

Sasuke turned for the entrance.  _This was dumb. Going back to Sakura-chan._  The air was knocked from his chest as he fell face first and a generous weight settled atop him. The stench of stagnant cigarettes suffocated Sasuke before he was flipped onto his back and an icy hand was held firm over his mouth, the gauzy wrappings scraping his skin.

It felt weird.

Something wasn't right.

Sasuke knocked away his left hand and gripped the wrist, holding it out for him to see.

Haku's left hand was lacking his entire pinky finger. Not the first knuckle, or the traditional sequence of first knuckles. Haku had been subject to a dead finger.

Haku threw off his mask, and whisper-screamed as his right hand clutched around Sasuke's throat.  _"YOU BASTARD I DID WHAT YOU TOLD ME!"_

Sasuke sputtered for air, his cheeks tight and throbbing, before he reached out and grasped Haku by the hairline. He pulled the boy down harsh and swift, and when Haku's grip slackened from surprise, Sasuke lurched forward and smacked his forehead against Haku's.

Haku fell back with a pained, frustrated cry.

Sasuke got onto his knees, his right hand curling in Haku's lapel, and pulling his left arm back, he threw his knuckles into the boy's left eye, twice, three times, four.

"You wouldn't be getting your ass kicked if your hair wasn't so girly!" Sasuke's brain was sparking as he had been half-awake his whole life until this very moment, the true expression of his desires like molten iron in his knuckles; Respect. He absolutely demanded it. No negotiations.

Haku knew he was going to have a few bruises tomorrow, but he wasn't going to be a loser today.

Haku gripped Sasuke's right wrist, then kneeled before standing. Haku pushed forward, his grip forcing Sasuke's arm back. Haku finished, hooking his left arm over Sasuke's bent arm, then Haku gripped his own wrist. Sasuke's upper limb burned from being forcibly extended and his mind wracked for a solution. Not enough time.

Haku twisted Sasuke's wrist, folding his hand, forcing his fingers to splay. "Only  _girls_  resort to hair-pulling," Haku twisted his wrist, causing Sasuke to grit his teeth, his throat humming with humiliated growls. "You clearly don't get along well with others, otherwise I'd've requested a little sensitivity from you by now."

"Piss off."

Haku twisted harder. Sasuke clamped on his voice, refusing to give Haku anything, and his chest felt tight for it, like a balloon was pressing his lungs against his ribs. When Sasuke began to wrench himself away, Haku struck Sasuke's neck with his elbow, causing Sasuke to slump as Haku refastened his grip. "This the last time we ever have to see each other. So you better-"

Footsteps. Small ones, their gait sounding like they were hop-skipping along the path. Both boys stilled. A little girl, no older than six, jumped to a stop as she gazed at them openly. "What are you two doiiiiiing?"

Haku flashed her a friendly smile, his demeanor softening instinctually. "Just playing a game."

Sasuke scoffed.

The girl craned her head and approached cautiously. "In here?"

"Mm-hm. Wanna play, too?" As the girl stood before them, the mischief rolled easily off of Haku's tongue. "So I'm the noble samurai, and he's the lowly merchant. He refused to bow to me, so now I'm punishing him. You get to play the Emperor's daughters," Haku looked at the disgruntled Sasuke. "Merchant, will you bow before the Princess?" Sasuke turned away and scoffed again, baring his teeth at this humiliation. "My, what unabashed rudeness. Princess, you may proceed."

The little girl smirked as she threw the first kick into Sasuke's shin. The minimal response he gave only egging her on.

Sasuke retaliated, throwing his toe into her twig-like shin. She shrieked and clutched her limp, tears beading her eyes.

The fire in his arm tripled as Haku reacted to his attack.

The girl got up, shrieking still. "You're mean! I'm getting my dad!" She ran off.

Haku shoved Sasuke against a mirror, twisting Sasuke's wrist until it creaked. "You  _don't hit kids._  I  _hate_  that."

"You think you're better than me or something?" Sasuke threw his entire weight into Haku. The older boy stumbled but righted himself, ending Sasuke's futile attempt to throw him off.

"You were making fun of me for this earlier, weren't you? I saw that look." Haku grasped Sasuke's pinky finger and in a single snap, pain like searing needles exploded, and Sasuke's pinky was stuck the wrong way. Now they were even.  _Well, even enough._

Sasuke screamed through clenched teeth and pursed lips, his forehead dotting with sweat as Haku released him, letting the arrogant Uchiha fall to his knees. Sasuke cradled his hand, pushing air through the tight coil of his lips as he shook and growled against the agony. That was it then; his date with Sakura was over. He'd already been gone longer than he cared for, and now this happened.

His knuckle was swollen an angry red. Flexing his digit was impossible.

Sasuke's earlier nonchalance struck Haku funnily, as he pocketed his hands and shifted his weight onto his left foot. "You haven't seen him at all, have you?"

"Who? What're you talking about?"

"I put Naruto in the hospital."

The blusterous fury that had been whipping like desert winds inside of Sasuke turned solemn and icy like nightfall. His skin chilled, his heart quieted with his mind as if any noise at all would alert a predator to his location.

"What?"

"You said you didn't care how-"

"I never said to do  _that_!"

"You didn't understand what you were really asking then. You can't walk up to Naruto and tell him 'We're not friends anymore' and expect him to agree. And no amount of insults would have gotten him to let me go."

Sasuke grimaced at these words as if a new psychic wound was repoening. Was this going to be Itachi and Shisui all over again? Itachi and mother, Itachi and father? Even in Fugaku's disappointment, his words, his comments still came out like praise. Fugaku, who agreed to let Itachi abandon them, seemed as devoted to his first born as ever. Was this really Sasuke's curse? Always second place, second best, the second thought. Sasuke refused a reality like this.

It was Naruto who noticed him. Naruto who approached him. Naruto who was constantly in need of validation, of family, just like him. Someone like that, there was just no way that Sasuke had to compete like this. No way would Naruto value him less. "I don't care if you were first, I've been his friend the longest."

"And look how much ground you've covered," Haku chortled condescendingly. "You don't even understand the reasoning behind my actions, do you?"

When it seemed that Sasuke would no longer engage, Haku decided to take his leave. "If you break your word and send someone after me, I will definitely kill him. And he'll probably let me."

Sasuke raised up from the floor, glaring as Haku's sickeningly fragile face surrounded him and judged him. "What the hell kind of twisted shit is that?!"

The reflections slid away, leaving Sasuke in utter isolation, yet Haku's voice drifted so clear.

"Because someone like him can't hurt those most precious to him."

* * *

_Convince them. Geez, this feels like one of those trick questions, or friggin' misdirection._

Naruto sat on concrete steps overlooking a skate park below encircled by Walnut trees, his arms resting over the chipped honey yellow railing.

The only idea that kept chirping at him was vigilantism. What was more heroic than jumping in and committing a good deed? So far he hadn't witnessed the slightest bit of trouble.

_Sure. Just when I'm looking for it, I can't find it. But when I ain't looking for it, it finds me. Bullshit._

Naruto pulled out his smartphone and jumped back into chat.

**Kyūbi: Hey. I'm totally stumped.**

**Nibi: With your mission? What were you asked to do?**

**Kyūbi: I got asked if I wanna be a hero for a day or a villain and obvs I chose hero, but I don't know what to do.**

**Nanabi: Where are you now?**

**Kyūbi: Skate park.**

**Nanabi: I WISH I WAS THERE!**

Naruto's smile was small and heavy on his lips. It hurt so much to see her so excited over things he took for granted.  _I wonder if Hinata is like this too…_

**Kyūbi: You wanna see what's going down?**

**Nanabi: PLZ PLZ PLZ PLZ**

Naruto pulled his legs in and scrambled down the stairs, his thumbs tapping the camera to record. He raised his phone at chest level and aimed the lense at the skate bowl in the center. A couple boys and girls his age in their ripped jeans and knees pads pushed across the concrete. The older teens and veterans in their hightops flaking at the soles were catching decent air as they gripped the outer edge of their boards and worked the expanse of the bowl like dolphins leaping over water.

Ten minutes of grime, effort and proud smiles and Naruto submitted it to the chat.

**Nanabi: You're welcome.**

**Kyūbi: Eh? Aren't I supposed to say that?**

**Nanabi: But you did this for me. That makes you a hero.**

Naruto ducked his face beneath his hood as he rubbed the back of his neck. He pouted as his cheeks burned up to his ears.  _Dammit. That's not fair._

Why couldn't they be friends in real life?

Naruto's phone sounded and he found he had been pulled into private chat again.

**Admin: That's very sweet, but that won't count.**

**Kyūbi: Oh?**

**Kyūbi: What'm I supposed to be doing exactly? You said convince them. I don't get it. 'Them' isn't chat?**

**Admin: No, them isn't chat.**

**Kyūbi: …**

**Kyūbi: Alright, I can't pass unless I've recorded my heroics, huh?**

The weirdo hadn't even stated to share like the missions before, but it was certainly implied at this point. Naruto wondered what this guy was doing with all their chat logs and videos. Social experiment seemed about right, but for what? To what end?

**Admin: Looking forward to it.**

Naruto hung his head and pushed out a sigh. Seemed like vigilantism was right on the mark, after all. Naruto's palms grew slick with cold sweat as he considered the position he found himself in. Seventy odd pounds and wandering around the city like a whipped stray dog; Wasn't it too soon for him throw himself into danger again?

_Or maybe I need this. So I can't stop doubting myself all the goddamn time._

Those two weeks spent sulking over tryouts had affected him in a way he hadn't even noticed. Having those first few layers of gleaming optimism stripped away, he had drifted inside himself like he were sinking slowly into the sea, and through half-shut eyes, he had studied the ripples of his fluctuating self-image like he were piecing together who he really was, what he really wanted and wanted to be, and what he could do and could never do. The latter of which he had clung to so strongly, causing him to forget his smile.

Before emerging from those waters a withdrawn and contemplative Naruto, he had been a boy ready to take anything and everyone on, no matter the bumps and bruises he may suffer, because he had felt confident about everything else.

Grimacing as his nerves buzzed beneath his skin, Naruto's lips set into a firm line.

**Kyūbi: Yeah, me too.**

* * *

The city was an inky ocean dazzling with neon starlight, golden yellow, ethereal blues and gaudy pinks, from the rooftop where Naruto stood. The skyline glowed along the horizon, the abyssal sky above housed blinking satellites and drifting planes, resembling microscopic jellyfish twinkling along the deepest depths of the earth.

An uneventful day spent patrolling the surface had driven him to get above it, to wait around and scour the red light district for activity. In his boredom as the sun had steadily fallen, Naruto had taken to practicing parkour rolling and wall climbing, and he'd gotten pretty good though he couldn't bring himself to try and jump gaps yet.

He pumped himself up for this, despite how his heart raced like a wheel spinning erratically off its axle.

So far he had seen shady men wandering to and fro of the street below, dressed in their sleek black suits and cloud white tracksuits, their ornate tattoos peeking above their collars.

With dangerous men like the Yakuza doing the patrolling for everybody, there was no way there'd be any crime here, not unless someone was incredibly desperate or incredibly stupid.

" _Oi. Oiiii!"_

Naruto crept to the edge of the rooftop and peered below. A young man roughly Scar Face's age, dressed in a bright yellow tracksuit with double white stripes along the sleeves and pants and a silver and crimson embroidered Ouroboros on the back of his jacket had taken an antagonistic stance against four men and a junior high school student. Three of these men wore suits, the fourth a pale yukata with faint silken embroidery, his long brown hair swept back from the forehead. The junior high kid, his brown hair also long yet held in a loose ponytail, wore khakis and a dark blue blazer; a private school uniform Naruto only vaguely recognized.

" _Don't you know who I am?!"_  The yellow tracksuit exclaimed as he bent forward at the waist, hands in his pockets and glaring up at them.  _"You've got some nerve coming in Gato's territory like you own it, not giving me my due deference."_

The interest and tension waned as Naruto's eyes drifted half-closed. Even he could tell this dumb thug was lying his ass off. Either he wasn't a subordinate of Gato's or he was bottom rung of that family. Either way he was too young to be demanding respect from elder Yakuza, enemies or not.

Naruto wondered how these men who lived on the fringes of society operated within these public spats.

To Naruto's surprise, the group of five turned away and carried on, as if the gnat that struck their eye had been forgotten.

" _You want a fight that badly?!"_  The yellow gnat dashed forward, his arm outstretched for the boy, only to be knocked away with the force of a propeller.

Naruto's chest swelled up to his throat, his breath seized on his tongue. He clutched at the brick he leaned upon, knowing he had just seen something amazing and was itching to see more.

The yellow gnat clutched his wrist, wincing as though his hand had completely cramped up. The junior high student had fallen into a fighting stance, his back straight and crouched as though he were sitting, feet staggered apart, his left hand raised and turned inwards, his right palm held out as though he were ready for retaliation.

_Looks so cool. What martial art is that?_

_Pan-pin-pun_ , Naruto's phone alerted him. He crawled away from the edge and squinted against the brightness of his screen. Someone had actually replied to his ad.

" **Rent a Hero for a day? This sounds like an awful joke. If you're for real, then you better show up within the hour."**

Naruto observed the address provided and searched it. He had twenty minutes by taxi to get there. And they never said what he would be facing.

* * *

Naruto bolted up three flights of stairs, the indignant screams and enraged shouts growing louder, as if their voices alone could slam him into the wall.

" _WHA' WILL YOU DO WISSOUT ME, HUH?! DUMB WRETCH!"_  Boomed an older man, words slurring together.

" _THAT'S NUNNER YER BUSINESS!"_ Shrieked a girl.

Naruto's heart stuttered at the sound of glass shattering, and heavy footfalls pounding along the floor. A smack and a thud joined the chaos.  _How long have they been arguing for? Is everyone just ignoring this?!_

Naruto had no time to regret, his heart far too full of fear to fit anything else.

The apartment door was ajar. Did she find time to do that for him?  _Nevermind._  Naruto threw the door open and dashed inside.

Even with the medical mask on, the thick stench of alcohol, stagnant sweat and sourness of molding food choked him, but it was the underlying sweetness of blood that caused him to recoil the most.

The apartment was dark and under-furnished save for a single dingy lamp on the floor beside the beige sofa, its center sunken in and stained grey from constant use. Various beer bottles laid about the wooden floor, marred with scuffs and scratches, and the television roared with static.

Bright light poured from either side of the television. The kitchen. It had two entryways.

A large shadow blocked the light coming from inside the kitchen, it turned its head and set its beady eyes upon Naruto. The man stepped out of the closest entryway into the living room, his slovenly appearance matching his surroundings. Stocky from ankle to neck, and looming in the unsettling light like an ogre, his cocked fists were large like sledgehammers and his knuckles scraped and bruised. His beer belly poked out from beneath his stained white shirt, and his boar-like face was darkened and unshaven.

Naruto swallowed. He had called the police once their arguing had reached his ears back in the lobby. So all he had to do was reach her and be her shield until they got here. If it wasn't too late.

The man cocked his head towards the kitchen and sneered, not once taking his eyes off of Naruto. "Karin uselish girl! Thish one o' your classhmates?"

Naruto's breath stilled, his heart rate spiked and his stomach curled.  _His teeth. They're bloody._  In fact the edges of his mouth and crew neck were stained. He didn't seem to be in pain, but that blood had to be his? Maybe he was slurring from biting his tongue, maybe she hit him so hard he bled.

Naruto sidled towards the kitchen and breathed. One. Step. At. A. Time.

The man cocked an eyebrow as he followed Naruto's movements. "Where ya think yer goin'? I dun think she gonna wan' ya t'see 'er."

Naruto peeked inside the kitchen entryway as a pair of white feet came into view, her soles grey with dirt and… permanent marker.

Left foot:  **Use**.

Right Foot:  **The bat**.

Her toes wriggled.

Naruto stifled a snort.  _Sneaky girl, holy shit._  Naruto searched his surroundings, finding nothing until he backed up into a hard object, causing it to roll just a little. She left it right here where he could get it.

Just as Naruto snatched up the bat, the floor shook, pounding footfalls neared like an earthquake and the last thing Naruto saw was the man's fist in his stomach before the world went black.

* * *

Naruto clawed out of the darkness, wide-eyed and screaming only to be silenced by blinding whiteness and a slow clap.

Naruto touched his sore, tender face, his heaving chest, his aching stomach. Regret felt like molten razors tearing his insides out. A white gloved hand touched his shoulder and Naruto flinched away, his pupils pin-sized as he stared up into Obito's impassive face. No, not wholly impassive. He was smiling.

"Weren't you supposed to stay home and heal?"

"Huh? Huh?" Naruto's memories were like jigsaw pieces belonging to each to their own different set. No matter how he tried, nothing would connect. Saliva gathered quick at the back of his throat and went down like lead. His gaze jittered about, taking in the white walls, white lights, white curtains, white sheets and white bed. Monotonous beeping, IV drip attached to his sore arm, mottled with blackish-blue bruises. Tears bubbled forth, uselessness settling in his bones.

He couldn't remember anything before this, but he knew he didn't want to go back home. When they did send him back, was Mizuki going to kill him for sure next time? Would Mizuki hide his small body in the trunk of that broke down car? Would no one realize he was missing until the crows began to peck at the stench?

Naruto groaned as his head tightened and throbbed. He fell back against his pillows, eyes clenched against the light, and he pulled the sheet up over his face. He stayed that way.

Obito pressed the nurse call button.

* * *

Naruto stood before the bathroom mirror, dressed in his new  _gakuran_ , the collar hanging loose about his neck and the shoulder seams sagging.

He grimaced at his reflection, at his crooked nose held in place by tape, at the sheer fuzz of blonde hair that made him look like a baby duck, and the fading purple splotches of stubborn bruises that spanned from his right eye to the entire left half of his face. A couple days spent in renewed hospital stay and his memories had finally flooded him like someone had shoved his head under water, holding him there until everything fell into place.

That abusive drunkard had disrupted his staples, causing minor tearing and renewed bleeding. Bruises and welts had been found all over his body when the police had finally arrived. Based on Obito's account, the girl had hit the man over the head with a cast iron wok, stopping the attack.

They were re-homing her.

_Obito tapped his pen against his knee, his face steely and impassive yet again. "There's no guarantee her next foster home will be perfect, but compared to that man, I think she'll be fine. Either way, it'll be completely up to her how good her new situation will be."_

" _Why do you say that? She's being forcibly moved around to depend on complete strangers!"_

" _Yes, but if likeability is an indicator of survival, she should want to try harder to survive. For whatever reason, she has gone through five homes in three years. That sounds like self-perpetuation to me."_

Naruto understood what he saying, though it was a hard truth to swallow. Victimhood. Self-defeating habits.  _Am I doing any better than her?_  He tried to be in control of himself and his life, but somewhere along the way he found himself playing tug-of-war with an invsible giant, the rope a hefty steel cable.

_The same, nearly indiscernible smile softened Obito's face. "Well, don't beat yourself up too much about it. She wanted me to let you know she was truly happy you showed up. Guess she hasn't given up on strangers completely, huh?"_

Naruto never touched his cracked phone since, not the least bit curious how the recording turned out. The man had been arrested, and even with Obito's assurances, Naruto didn't feel like a hero. Those two days thinking he was five again, thinking he was still living in that shithole really messed with his mind, as if he were just zigzagging backwards in life.

He stilled in the silence as if he were an astronaut forced to explore an alien world. He slipped on a face mask and sighed.

"This is gonna suck."

* * *

Naruto squirmed through the crowded hallways, the happy smiles around him falling away like dead leaves, their eyes skewering him with the intensity of their questions and ill-contained shock.

All the while he kept his head high and his eyes forward.

Naruto slipped into his classroom, pointedly ignoring Iruka's existence as he marched to the back. Reaching his desk, he rested his chin in his palm and stared hard outside the window, a concerted effort to keep everyone's intrusive gazes beyond his periphery.

Yes, he felt small. Yes, he felt strange. As if all the rotten, unspeakable bits of his soul that he had kept so far away from the light had now been forced to the surface. It was all over his face and in his tired frown. It was arranged in his broken bones like a sulky SOS.

He wasn't normal like them. He wasn't healthy and loved like them.

He was a poor trash nobody from nowhere belonging to nothing and to no one. And he didn't see that changing any time soon.

* * *

When the first car bomb went off that night thirteen years ago, Iruka's parents had been one of the first responders on the scene.

Family dinner interrupted, half-eaten food turned cold as ten year old Iruka huddled under the kotatsu, frightened by the screams, the sirens and the ceaseless booms that rattled the windows and doors. His mouth cupped to contain his sounds, he shook and clenched his eyes, waiting for the chaos to die down, for his parents to come back unscathed. He waited a day and a half for them to scoop him up in their arms and assure him that they weren't going anywhere.

Instead, some strange men belonging to the government came along and found him. They told him his parents were brave. Told him their noble sacrifice would be honored. His parents; Good people. Good and dead.

They told him to pack what he needed.

He needed his parents.

No, he couldn't have them.

And he couldn't remain in his childhood home.

They moved him miles from everything he ever knew. The friends he had made in elementary school would eventually forget him.

He lugged that red gym bag full of clothes, keepsakes and old toys up those five flights of weather-rotted concrete stairs, and stood in the entryway of his new shelter, hazy and numb.  _This isn't really happening to me. I haven't moved here, I've moved into some poor kid's body. I'll give this a day at most before I go home._

Iruka spent that first night eating cup ramen on the floor, seated across a picture frame of his parents. When his eyes grew hot and itchy, his breathing became strained, as if he could only take it in but not let it out. His paltry dinner slipped from his clammy hands as he sucked for air like a man drowning. He clutched his chest and keened like a starving, beaten mutt and finally, reality chased out his tears.

His blunted nails scraped along the tatami and all his mourning, all his rage spilled from his body in a sudden, violent scream. Once wasn't enough. If anything, it only made him more desperate, more hopeless, and he screamed again. And again. And again.

He threw the cup ramen across the room. He stomped on the image of his parents, cutting his foot open. He hurled his action figures against the wall until there were dents and missing plastic hands. He huddled in the dingy bathtub, seething and sobbing as he rocked back and forth, so frightened to be alive, to be left behind.

He would soon take solace in the bitterness. That his heroic parents chose complete strangers over him.

Iruka would spend three years finishing out elementary school with kids he didn't particularly like, their provincial accents too heavy and their perspectives on life too narrow and immature. Until he met Mizuki.

Mizuki was just like him. He used to live in the city. His parents passed away and the government displaced him, sending him to the same rundown apartment complex as him, with Mizuki's shelter on the third floor.

They became stuck together likes magnets, readily indulging in their innate meanness as they thought themselves different from the rest and better than them too.

Iruka flew into a short-lived phase of a prank machine, one that drew out mixed reactions. Mizuki was the enabler and the ideas man where Iruka's concepts failed to hold any style or cunning. It all came to an end when one of their neighbors, a seventy year old man, slipped down a flight of stairs and hit his head, blood smeared along the corner from his gash, his skin having split as easily as a spoiled plum.

No one ever found out they were technically responsible.

Shortly before Iruka and Mizuki were to start their first year of junior high, a new shelter baby had moved in on Mizuki's floor, and this time he really was a baby. He was three years old of all things, allowed to live by himself.

Was he even potty trained? Who fed him? Told him to go to bed? Who got him bathed? Did he dress himself? Ah, the mysterious choices adults do make.

His name was Naruto, and he was a giggly, grinning, obnoxious, little attention-seeker with a stupid name. He ran around screaming and laughing, chasing frogs, dipping in the grass like an animal and scribbling along the walls with his broken crayons. An annoying little pissant with no one to play with but himself, and he seemed damn content with that.

Weird kids like him pissed Iruka off.

The first time they officially became acquainted with each other was when Naruto had been standing upright on one of the swings. He lost his balance, slipped off and fell on his butt. The swing had pendulated and smacked Iruka in the back of his head. Not knowing why that happened or who did it, Iruka reacted as he grabbed the seat and threw it away.

The distinct wail of a toddler jackhammered through his ears and he saw that he had hit Naruto dead center of his forehead. A bright red mark glared back at him.

" _Shut up! SHUT UP!" Iruka stomped over and grabbed the toddler's forearm, shaking him to obey. Mizuki stood back and observed the full display of power disparity._

_Sometimes Mizuki wished all the adults in the complex would just vanish overnight, leaving him with only time before he ruled over all the kids below him._

_Yes, he fancied the image of demanding a daily tribute, lest they find themselves on the street. Would the government even notice? Would they wrangle them back up and return them to their respective, dusty beds? The truck that arrived to stock their fridges was the closest thing to follow up, no suit nor official ever stepped foot out here again._

_Mizuki took a step back from the scene as a worried young woman hurried over and snatched Iruka's wrist. She wagged her finger and he released Naruto, scowling at her and her words._

" _You're thirteen, ain't you? This is not how young men behave."_

_Iruka's scowl morphed into severe incredulity, and Mizuki found this poisonous look more befitting than the bland goody-goody he feigned to be during school._

_The woman did not take lightly to his damning glare and she smacked his cheek, swiftly scolding him again._

Her words had left a sting that outlasted the one from her hand, and Iruka found himself entering Junior High stumbling almost drunkenly towards a self-image he was forced to want, one that blurred and swayed and morphed the more he tried to bring it into focus.

Be responsible. Be good. Appear kind. Follow the rules. You are not an individual, you are an adult. Your needs must be invalidated before you can join the rest of us, before we can accept you. It's the group or nothing. Do you really want to be left behind all over again?

Iruka flailed every second of every year as he tried to become the man he was supposed to be. The man his parents would expect him to be.

When High School began, Iruka had found that the rules of group acceptance had changed, and that Mizuki didn't need Iruka's boring yet praised image to carry him anymore. Despite that, there was an advantage to keeping a loser for a friend around; and Mizuki still clung to him like the emotional vampire that he was whenever it suited him. Iruka, left with no friends to call his own, allowed it. Somehow the teasing and the verbal abuse, the constant reminder that he was alone even in the presence of others was better than being truly alone.

Iruka had been long branded with a sort of fear he didn't know how to purge, one riddled with guilt and hypocrisy.

Seeing that Police Sergeant hover over Naruto like a keen-eyed hawk had dredged those fears to surface.

Any moment, any day now, all this would be taken away from him; his livelihood, his independence, his budding reputation.

Because for all the wrong Iruka had done to him, for all the wrong that he might still do, just out of the frustration of it all; He really thought that Naruto might get back at him someday.

* * *

Naruto slouched on the hard, wooden bench as he watched his classmates dart about on the indoor basketball court, their sneakers squeaking and their laughter falling short of his ears.

He felt like he was catching up to himself, to reality, as if he was two years shy of becoming normal again. The person he was before Haku slammed his head against the guard rail was unrecognizable. The person he was after was foggy at best. Iruka's accusation in the hospital lobby was a distant echo, yet the image was so clear. And his pathetic showdown with a degenerate inside his apartment felt like a scene from a video game rather than something that really happened. The one happy moment between all of this had been Nanabi's words at the skatepark. The person he was at that very moment was the only person he wanted to be. Could he even get that back?

A male student approached and sat down beside him, Sasuke's face entering his periphery.

Neither boy spoke up.

Neither knew what to say.

Sasuke desired to clear the air, to get this balloon in his throat to go down. To think Haku would go this far to make his point, Sasuke no longer had any doubt that the Yakuza scum would really kill Naruto.

He hated this feeling, as if Haku was still holding his arm behind his back.

Sasuke knew he did the right thing. He just never thought he had left himself wide open to this ruthless exploitation.

The worst of it all, it really had been a coincidence for an Uchiha to show up before his Kumicho.

It felt like it was only a matter of time before Haku made good on his promise.

Naruto pushed a sigh through his nose, letting the weight of his apprehensions and baggage slide off the slanting of his shoulders. He craned his head, fixing Sasuke with a steady gaze as he offered out his fist. What Obito said really sunk in. He had to be the first to make amends, the first to offer an open heart if he wanted to keep the good things in his life going. And even if Sasuke was too proud to speak his mind, he was still here by his side.

Sasuke hesitated at the gesture. He faced Naruto's abyssal gaze, world weary yet brave, and relief trickled down inside, diluting the poison of secrets that had begun to ferment in the pit of his stomach.

Smiling though small, Sasuke tapped his knuckles against Naruto's, and the small bit of satisfaction on Sasuke's lips passed onto his best friend.

Naruto glanced down and frowned. "The hell happened to your pinky?"

It was taped within a blue cushion-lined metal splint, the knuckle darkened with a deep bruise.

Sasuke turned away and hid hands hands beneath his arms as he crossed them over his chest. "Car door."

Another lie that he had to tally.

* * *

Naruto curled up in the center of his sofa, every single light in his apartment left on, as they have been the past week.

Sergeant Obito had eventually gifted him with a new smartphone, all his data transferred from the broken one, yet Naruto had taken to using his laptop once again.

**Admin: It's been nearly a month. Have you stopped playing?**

**Kyūbi: I dunno. I did the mission. But I fucked it up.**

**Admin: You recorded it, right?**

**Kyūbi: I fucked up tho. I haven't even looked at it.**

**Admin: I can look at it for you.**

Naruto's eyes darted left of the laptop where the new device laid on the kotatsu. It stared back at him like a bad omen, like touching it would suck out his soul. Biting the inside of his bottom lip, he grabbed it and turned it on.

Tapping around, he found the file, the preview image completely black as expected. With a steady breath, he sent it.

Time dragged on as Naruto contemplated the restless sleep he was loathed to have again. It was well past two in the morning and he had one more day of school.

**Admin: Are you ready to receive your next mission?**

* * *

Second Term rolled into Third, and all seven first year classes were gathered in front of four white coach buses, their luggage and backpacks stuffed with five days worth of their life.

They were heading out of country, off to visit a nearby ally on warmer waters: Nami no Kuni.

Nami no Kuni was historically a country of fishermen, their livelihood evolving towards trade some eras later. Their location had been ideal during times of war to the point that they often sought protection beneath Hi ni Kuni's great shadow.

They eventually found immense prosperity as the world's top port. They didn't export solely Hi no Kuni corporate goods, but goods from all over, a treaty deal from decades past lest Hi no Kuni invoke more conflict from robbing other countries the chance to improve their economy.

This trip was to focus around historical enrichment, but also promised scenic tourism, especially at the local beaches. Many of the girls and boys were brimming with a spectrum of excitement, from innocent to not-so.

As Naruto sat alone in the back left seat of the bus, he watched the trees surrounding their country thin along the eastern coastline. A lone landform greeted him along the blue horizon, an island surrounded by whirlpools. A tight grouping of high rises poked up from the center of the island like shimmering beacons made of volcanic glass and opal, much of it obscured by its encasing, verdant hills.

_Uzushio._

The island drifted away from sight as the coach headed southwest from the peninsula border, and Naruto stood up, directing his gaze out the right side of the bus.

Another island came into view, one dominated by grey and efficient high rises, along with silvery warehouses that resembled bisected soup cans laid on their side, their coastline fenced with massive wooden docks, and equally massive freight ships.

An enormous bridge connected Nami to the mainland, but nothing to Uzushio, nothing save for ferries or charter planes. Naruto sat back down and stole a final glance as Uzushio disappeared behind the rocky coast.

His chest sank in resignation.

His roots were there.

* * *

Twenty four futons nested twenty three tired boys in the dark  _Ryokan_ room, the occasional grumble disturbing the placid silence.

Shikamaru, who no one would have guessed would have a hard time falling asleep, slapped at his eyes. "Naruto, go to bed."

Several mutual mutterings chorused in, along with three pillows lobbed at his back and legs. Naruto stood, kicking their pillows away as he made refuge in a corner between the closets and the  _fusuma_  that lead outside, his wireless headset snug over his ears and his concentration undisturbed.

The following morning was the complete opposite. Twenty three rested boys had bathed, dressed, and showed up for breakfast.

Sasuke returned to the room with Shikamaru and Choji, standing over the curled up form of a sleeping Naruto. "What was he doing?" Sasuke toed Naruto's shoulder, getting no response. He and Naruto hadn't a sleepover since they were eleven and back then, Naruto was the kind of restless sleeper who looked like he got in a fight with his bedding. This Naruto was not that Naruto.

Choji munched away on a bag of spicy chips. "Watching horror movies, again. He was doing that the other night too."

"And the night before that." Shikamaru sighed, curling his arms behind his head. Which meant ever since they got here. Or maybe this became his new normal some time ago? "Hey, we gotta go. We can't all get in trouble. He'll catch up later." Shikamaru turned away, heading for the  _shoji_  doors, Choji following beside him.

"I'll stay. If they ask, just say Naruto's sick."

Shikamaru raised his arm and waved as he departed. "Sure thing."

Sasuke took a seat against the closets, propping his arms over his knees, letting time eat away the daylight as he waited and observed.

Another month and Naruto would be fourteen years old. His spurt had finally come in, albeit gradually. Five-foot-two and a hundred and eight pounds, Naruto was about as lanky as he was toned, the remnants of his younger self stubbornly clinging to his maturing form. His calves and forearms had acquired a sparse layer of flaxen hair. His cheekbones only revealed depending on how the shadows formed on his face.

Things were supposed to go back to normal. That's what Sasuke wanted. Yet, somehow it felt like Naruto was breaking some unspoken promise.

How can you be friends with someone who won't let you?

* * *

Blackened waves crashed against the shore, glowing specks of stardust and constellations illuminating the crests of the ocean. The salty bite of sea spray wafted on the breeze, sparkling along their senses.

Twelve pairs of feet pounded, jumped and skidded in the sand, their laughter and taunts lighting up the atmosphere in a way the outdoor torches could not. As the volleyball sailed over the net, Kiba performed a vicious spike. Naruto as the middle blocker attempted to meet the ball. It thunked off his face instead of his palms and he fell against the sand. His mouth tingled sore, his skin buzzed raw, but it was nothing he couldn't shrug off. Looking up at the spectrum of amusement on his friends' faces, Naruto rubbed the back of his head and grinned.

God, how he hated how uncoordinated he was. Even Lee mistook him as distracted during their training sessions. For some reason his reaction time, his instincts were just way off, worse than before, and he was simply flailing during spars.

When the games stopped and the sodas and snacks came out, they lounged outside their room, the  _fusuma_  fully parted, and the ceiling lights enveloping everything it touched. They joked about the other teachers, about how the stiff and humorless Iruka acted more like an old man than the sixty year old in charge of Class 1-E, or how badly Kiba messed up flirting with a girl from Class 1-A.

"Choji must be sad there isn't enough  _chocolate_  here," Kiba snickered. Seemed like no one would let him live that admission down. "Not like in Kumo."

Choji kicked Kiba's knee. "Idiot! We can't go there anyways. Kumo hates us."

"What country doesn't secretly hate us?" Shikamaru stretched his arms above his head before curling them behind as he reclined against the walkway, his calves dangling over the edge. "Even here, the school had to get several permissions in order just for them to accept our stay."

Sasuke's ears pricked up at Shikamaru's words, stirring the dark well of information kept at the back of his mind. "That's not a new thing they're doing. Fifteen years ago-" Choji and Kiba groaned, knowing where this was going. Sasuke glared lightly. "Anyways, a kid got severely injured on a field trip like ours, and a female classmate was missing for two days before finding her way back. Supposedly she went through a hellish ordeal and killed herself a year later. No one wants a repeat like that."

"Maaan, you always have some depressing as shit story to tell, don't you, Uchiha?" Kiba scowled like a man whose buzz had been killed. Sasuke shrugged. "I'm calling bull on your ghost story."

"It's not fiction."

"Then what school went on this field trip, huh? Where'd they go? Who're the names? I want names."

"Shut up, Kiba," Shikamaru huffed. "You know they keep that crap concealed when minors are involved. You'll never know more the police or the adults that were there."

"That really happened?"

All eyes fell upon Naruto as if they had forgotten he was there. When they were joking around, it was different. He laughed and listened and he was there. But when he spoke, they finally realized how rarely he did speak these days. Laughing alone wasn't the same thing. It jarred them to hear the crackling bass in his maturing voice.

Sasuke nodded solemnly, considering his best friend with subdued concern.  _Maybe I shouldn't have said anything after all._  To think Naruto would pick up an obsession with horror movies; Where would this knowledge take him next?

Naruto put his sour marble soda to his lips, furtively distracting the guilt that swelled inside him like the waves along the beach.

 _It would be bad if I really did it then, huh?_  He had become fascinated with running away, of stealing away with a boat into the night and sailing onto Uzushio's eastern shores.

But that was a form of a disappearing, and the empathy that crashed into him, the feeling of betraying and lying to the few people he had left who cared about him was the only thing that held him back. It gave him the gravest sense of separation anxiety he ever felt, as if he would be abandoning himself too. Physically alive but lost and gone in every other sense.

"Sasuke-kun." Called a female voice as she rounded the corner along the sand. Sakura arrived in plaited pigtails that draped from the nape of her neck, her white bikini almost glowing beneath her sheer cherry tunic. Her gaze was expectant, her expression almost as stoic as his own. Isn't it usually the boyfriend who changes from the relationship, not the girl?

The barest of smiles tugged at Sasuke's lips as he stood up. He wove around Kiba, not without patting the dog boy's head condescendingly, "Later losers," then jumped off the walkway to join his girlfriend. He slung his arm over her delicate shoulders and they sauntered off.

"Goddamn pretty boy," Kiba grumbled, raking his nails across his scalp as if he could dislodge Sasuke's teasing like so much dandruff. "Bet he gets off on being first at everything."

Choji wiped powdered cheese from his mouth. "Meh, but look who he's with, anyways. Only part about Sakura that's big is her mouth," That jab garnered snickers from Kiba and Shikamaru, but not Naruto. He knew Choji wasn't being genuinely mean, he just didn't see what was funny. "She can't even get tan lines properly."

Kiba reeled back, mouth agape and feral eyes wincing in horror while Shikamaru double-palmed his face, his laughter uncontainable and bordering on crying.

Choji was a true blue pervert for brown.

* * *

Naruto sat outside the shared bath, towel curled in his lap and headphones secured over his ears. Gnashing, abrasive Grindcore buzzed in the empty hall, but flooded his senses with impassioned rage and soul-curdling shrieks. He wasn't sure what he liked about it, he couldn't even understand the lyrics, but most of the time he was like semi-hard cement. Nothing else quite penetrated the numbness like being reminded of how deeply pissed off he used to feel.

The door opened and steamed billowed out, hitting his cheek. A stampede of bare feet exited forth as they diverted back to their rooms to dress.

Naruto stood and entered the  _ofuro_.

He had to bathe alone.

He couldn't let anyone see the scars, nor the way his navel looked like it had a cleft lip.

Even he hated looking at it.

* * *

A mid-morning tour through the Sector D wharves suddenly went from tedious yet comfortable to tongue-biting tension as a series of small rocks sailed through the air, three of which knocked Naruto in the back of the head.

"GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM!" cried a young boy, no older than nine, as he stooped to gather more stones. His white, blue-striped bucket hat emphasized the severity of his gaze, in the way that people sometimes look down on others by glaring up at them. He could glare up from beneath the brim of his hat all he wanted and you'd have no choice but to look at that naked hatred. "GO AWAY!"

Shikamaru grimaced wearily. "See what I was saying?"

Kiba looked about ready to pounce on the child as five more of his stones impacted near their feet.

Naruto's lips pursed slightly as he turned away from the group and began to approach the little snot.

Iruka's palms broke out in sweat as he stepped forward, his mouth moving quicker than his body. "Naruto!"

Naruto crouched down before the boy, the quiet sullenness he exuded quieting the boy in turn. "What's your name, kid?"

Inari's stony glower peeled a little ways, revealing an obstinate snarl. "... Inari… My grandfather disappeared in your country. No one's doing anything about it!" His eyes reddened and shined with unshed tears. "Why should you people get to come here but my grandfather can't come back home?! Why?!"

A distinct snap echoed through the wharf. Inari reached up to touch his cheek, an angry red coloring the skin. He stared back at Naruto, agape and subdued.

Iruka cupped his temples, heart beating him breathless as he berated himself for not dragging Naruto away.

"How does that feel?" The blonde asked. The tension unwound ever so slightly, allowing for some room to breathe as they watched on.

"Hurts. A lot."

"How about now?"

"... Still hurts. Stupid." Inari rubbed at the stinging throb in his face.

Naruto let a minute pass, then another. "How about now?"

Inari pursed his lips, then relented. "A little less."

"And instinctively you rubbed at the pain to make it go away faster. How long has your gramps been missing?"

"Eight months."

"And is throwing rocks at us helping make the pain go away any faster?" Naruto noted the way Inari's hands fisted as his sides and he reached out to grasps his wrists, raising the boy's fists up like a boxer. "You've got two good arms here," Naruto tapped his right palm against Inari's left fist, then the right fist, then the left again, until Inari reacted to his unwanted touches and directed his agitation into pummeling Naruto's palms until they were as red as his cheek. "Was it just you and your gramps, or you got anyone else?"

"Used to be grandpa, mom and me. Then it was grandpa, Kaiza, mom and me. Now it's just mom and me!"

"And do you hug your mom?"

"Yeah... She's sad, too. I hate it!"

"When you hug her, is it like this?" Naruto spread apart his arms at the same width as his chest.

"No, like this." Inari spread his arms wider than Naruto, and the blonde followed up by spreading his a little wider.

"Like this?"

"No! Like this!"

"Like this?"

"NO!" Inari's arms were spread open like he were ready to take on anything with his loved ones behind him. Naruto smiled.

"Y'know, the way hatred feels to me is like you're just hugging yourself. It's powerless and it's painful and it's really, really lonely. It's scary to want to put your arms around anything else because you gotta protect yourself or you think you might die. But you're going to keep getting bigger, Inari, and you're going to find other things to fill your arms with. Wouldn't you rather hold onto as many good things as you can, instead of one thing that makes you miserable?"

"W,Wha…?" A single tear finally escaped, and the dam broke loose. Inari ducked down, hiding his free-flowing anguish beneath his hat. He felt like a leaf on a branch shaking against violent winds, yet he felt warm at the same time, reminded of his deceased step-father and his personal philosophy. How did it come out of the mouth of this foreigner? It was impossible, it made no sense.

There was a gentle pressure against the top of his head, then the scrape of shoes against the cement. Inari opened his eyes, greeted by the wet puddle in front of his feet.

That blonde kid had rejoined his group and Inari never got to ask his name.

Shikamaru clapped a hand against Naruto's back, shaking his head though he beamed proudly. "Didn't think you'd be so good with kids."

"Same! I mean, if it were me..!" Kiba muttered, his hands clawing the air in front of him, as if demonstrating how his fingers would have found their way around that brat's skinny throat. His arms fell at his side as he sighed. "And for a second there I was thinking 'Where're the parents?!''"

Naruto shrugged, distantly aware of the unusual show of concern with which Iruka looked at him. Sasuke as well had a strange expression, his stoicism making it hard to discern. Naruto pushed them out of his mind as he shot Shikamaru a dubious look. "Whaddya mean? I don't care what anyone expects of me,  _I'm_  still a kid, aren't I? 'Sides, it's not like I don't understand how he feels."

* * *

Naruto laid out on the walkway outside their room, the  _fusuma_  partially closed, keeping himself separated from the boys as they played cards and made obscene jabs at each other.

Staring up the stars and idly tracing his own constellations, Naruto tapped against the back of his phone, further drowning himself in dissonant music as if it were the last thing that made sense to him.

Minutes passed before the uncomfortable sensation wriggling in his limbs turned completely intolerable and he knew he was being watched. He slipped off his headphones and sat up before visibly recoiling.

Iruka stood in the sand, dour and conflicted, like he had five lifetimes worth of shittiness to get off his chest. It felt like there was a thousand years of grief between them alone. "Naruto…"

Iruka thought he had fucked up today. He thought Naruto alone could ruin their homeland's reputation just by gratifying the minor conflict at hand. The slap against Inari's cheek had resounded in Iruka's psyche, looping itself louder and louder until Naruto's helpless voice had silenced it all.

That helplessness, that vulnerability that he shared was like a megaphone held up against Iruka's pain, allowing it to scream at him 'YOU IDIOT! YOU CHILD! DON'T FORGET US! DON'T FORGET! WE'RE FESTERING! WE'RE HERE! WE'RE HERE! WE'RE HERE! WE'RE HERE!' and so was Naruto. He was real and he knew pain. Knew it intimately. Carried it around his neck like a wounded comrade on the battlefield. And Iruka just ignored that. He ignored it for so long and he was responsible from the very beginning.

Suddenly the mistrust with which Naruto regarded him grew too unbearable and Iruka closed his eyes.  _"_ D,Don't forget curfew again," He turned on his heel and made his retreat. "… Have a good night."

* * *

Sasuke laid awake in the blackness of the  _Ryokan_  room, arms curled behind his head. A variety of snores filled the room like the hum of a ventilation system, from stuttering throaty snores, to nasally whistlings.

Turning his face into his right arm and craning his head up, he observed Naruto's obsessive ritual in the corner, blank blue eyes hypnotized by his phone screen. White and red light flashed at rapid paces across his face. What the hell was so interesting about horror movies all of sudden? Was it supposed to be cathartic?

Frowning, Sasuke rolled onto his elbows and pushed to his feet. He crept along the tatami, hoping Naruto wasn't too absorbed lest they both wake up the entire beachside.

Sasuke settled beside Naruto, peering at the screen as a sickly pale newborn creature thrashed and tore its way out of a convulsing man's back, the dying man's skin pasty white and flushed with sweat. Naruto tapped the center of the screen, pausing the film and swiped to a pitch black chat room.

**Kyūbi: Is it weird that awful things can be awesome sometimes?**

**Nanabi: I think the word you're looking for is 'impressive', but yeah that was 'holy friggin ew that's happening! my eyes! my eyes!'**

Naruto chuffed and smiled.

"So you've been watching horror movies with a girl?" Sasuke whispered, breaking the stillness of Naruto's bubble.

"Yeah."

Sasuke didn't know whether to be surprised or relieved. Though, he wasn't sure what to make of a girl that enjoyed solely horror flicks. "She cute?" Could a girl like that even be cute?

"Dunno."

Sasuke nearly palmed his face. "You two haven't met?"

Naruto's initial passivity hardened into disinterest as he chose not to respond. When Sasuke nudged his shoulder once, twice, Naruto shoved back and mildly glared at him. "Lay off."

"Why're you having an online only relationsh-"

"We're just friends-"

"Sure," Silence lapsed as Naruto ignored him yet again. "You gotta stop liking girls that aren't here."

Naruto palmed his eyes and squeezed, his mouth twisted and parted in unspoken protest. For all the ways that Sasuke was capable of rubbing him the wrong way, it was his sense of entitlement to Naruto's personal affairs, as well as his misplaced concerns about Naruto's uncultivated 'image' that really chafed the blonde. Yet within Naruto's limited capacity to articulate his feelings, sharing them was simply off the table. "Sasuke, get off my nuts, okay?!"

All Naruto wanted from his best friend was some trust. Ino and Sakura had it. Choji and Shikamaru had it. What did he do to deserve to be belittled like this? What was he doing right now that was worth judging?

Sasuke stood, muttering "Whatever, loser," and returned to his futon.

Naruto would someday find far down the road that he too had lacked trust, and perhaps he could've done more about it.

* * *

Waking to utter darkness was nothing new for Haku, his whole life resembling a void that he ambled through, hands outstretched as he felt around for life, for warmth; hell, he would've settled for some sense.

Waking to the suffocating stench of cigarettes and a heavy weight creaking your bed was something that wasn't supposed to happen again, and when two big hands touched his shoulder and a sturdy knee brushed against his hip, Haku screamed.

He thrashed. He pulled away. He collapsed off the side onto the floor and scrambled towards the window.

The lights came on. Haku turned around, squinting as his eyes adjusted and he collapsed yet again, clutching the ticking time bomb in his chest. Haku curled forward between his legs, cupping his face as he wept.

"Haku…" Zabuza called out.

"Why would you do that?! Don't ever do that!"

The bed creaked as Zabuza lifted off from it.

Haku felt guilty for harboring this distrust towards him as he did now, but he had reacted. He couldn't help it.

"Haku, start packing your things."

Haku's palms fell away from his face, unmasking his humid shame, before he looked up. Confusion was smacked away by heart-thudding disbelief.

Zabuza stood there holding up his left hand. Gato removed his entire pinky too.

Fresh tears fell from Haku's eyes, yet he felt close to nothing at that moment. Pity, maybe? A little guilt? Relief, that was in there somewhere too, wasn't it? "You got expelled… W,We're both…"

"Going to our homeland." Zabuza's eyes crinkled as he offered a conflicted smile.

Expulsion was the most damaging to one's reputation in that unlawful, underground world. What would they do from here on out? They couldn't be normal. "I thought you were a wanted man back there?"

"Enough time has passed. C'mon." Zabuza tossed a big, blue luggage onto Haku's bedding, and the fifteen year old hiccupped a laugh.

* * *

_Five year old Naruto and six year old Haku stood outside a local bus stop, the midday summer sun bearing down on them and the dehydrated asphalt, surrounded by an ocean of tawny, dead grass._

_They looked right. They looked left. There was nothing along either horizon but the billowing distortion of heat, and they began to walk straight ahead into that yellow, tickling plain until it swallowed them both._

_Naruto craned his head up to the sky. The gradient of blue was subtle, like a halo of baby blue deepening into empty sapphire. Naruto raised his arms and fell onto his back. Haku stopped and observed him._

_On cloudless days like this, Naruto could feel himself lose equilibrium, like he were beginning to float away into that enigmatic atmosphere. Belonging to no one. Belonging to nowhere. 'I probably could float away… there's nothing to keep me here but…'_

" _Haku, is there a way out?"_

_Haku sat down beside him, grasping his left wrist as he hugged his legs. "What do you mean?"_

" _Y'know, from everything. From all the stuff that makes me… feel like that." Naruto pointed directly at the center of the sky. Haku craned his head back and gazed into the fathomless blue so smooth like a marble, and so deep like a bruise. Haku's lips parted, concepts arranging and evolving themselves around a singular feeling: helplessness. How was it possible to feel this infinitey small just from looking up?_

" _Dunno… But I'll try to find it for you."_

_Naruto turned his head and grinned at Haku._

" _Okay, me too. Let's both promise, okay? Whoever finds it first tells the other." Naruto extended his pinky, his broad smile rivalling the sun. A soft smile lit up Haku's features as he hooked his pinky around Naruto's._

" _Deal."_

* * *

The sky was a muted shade of blush, and the houses, the high rise corporations and the mountainous trees were flat and dark like cardboard cutouts from a cheap stage play.

Haku sat behind Zabuza, chin in his palm as he watched his surroundings recede behind him. Tomorrow he wouldn't see these buildings anymore. He wouldn't see these trees, all these hustling, self-absorbed city dwellers. It would be gone forever and for once his heart raced and skipped with hope.

The sleepy streets began to wake up as more cars steadily flooded the lanes. Morning rush hour. The streetlamps blinked out, the sky brightened, something clinked against the windshield and their SUV was steadily picking up speed.

Horns blared all around like a frantic brass orchestra.

Haku pulled away from the window, his eyes flicked over to the dashboard. "Hey, you gotta slow down-"

Zabuza's hands weren't on the wheel.

"Zabuza?!" Haku undid his seatbelt and reached over. He clutched the steering wheel with his left hand, as he struggled to push Zabuza's leg off the acceleration with his right, but that was like trying to move a sandbag with a twig.

Haku's entire being throbbed cold like his heart. The red rear of a minivan filled his vision and he screamed. Haku threw the wheel into a hard right.

The SUV jounced onto the sidewalk. Haku lost his grip as if the steering wheel had been torn from his hand. His head bounced off the roof. The front end smashed into a traffic pole. The headlights burst like glass bottle targets. The hood crumpled like a soda can. There was glass in his face as he was tossed forward like a bull rider.

Everything went black.

He couldn't breathe. Couldn't see. His wounds felt like the chilly death of wintry air, tiny shards of glass stuck to him everywhere, yet somehow his skin burned. Raw. It stung. His joints wouldn't respond. Muscles ached worse than his childhood training through the martial arts that Zabuza had him master.

His first instinct was to cry. Seemed like that had always been his first instinct, like when he had reached out for his dying mother.

Haku forced his eyes open, forced himself to move - towards what he didn't know, he just needed to get up, get out - and it was like crawling through steaming quicksand. He coughed and choked the acrid stench of motor oil. It burned his lungs. His face flushed cold, and his stomach felt hollow, as though his body vehemently were refusing any more of the stuff.

There was light. Blurry colors. A lot grey and black.

He growled and sobbed as he scraped himself along the ground. The sidewalk. That's where he was. His teeth were slicked red and his tongue swam in coppery sweetness. His palms screamed as he pushed off the cement, as if he was shredding himself across metal spikes.

"Zabu-"

There was a new scrape along the sidewalk. Someone tugged Haku's aching head by his hair. His wail staccatoed then rose into piercing hysterics as he was dragged face first across the shrapnel laden cement. His nails chipped and burned as he dug at the ground. Who was taking him? Why like this? "Let me go… let me go… Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" A futile chant. "Zabuza!"

The throbbing burn in his face ceased as the man suddenly stopped pulling him. "You should have stopped depending on him long ago."

Haku didn't recognize this voice. "Why do you say that?!"

Dress shoes, black and polished, clapped along the cement, stopping short of his face.

"Ahh, there's my failed investment!"

Haku shuddered and stilled as if he had been abandoned in a cage of wild dogs, their noses sniffing the blood in the air.  _Gato_.

"I honestly don't know who I'm more disappointed in. The greatest murder tool on our side of the world and he thought I'd let him go alive. Embarrassing."

Out of the withering ache and the biting cold threatening to silence him, a searing rage burst through. Haku forced himself to his feet. He sprinted off. His head snapped back. He fell on his side, cursing his shortsightedness.  _Always the hair. Always the goddamn…_ He should have cut it off long ago. But in a twisted moment of self-validation, he had decided against it, lest he prove to Sasuke that he was indeed stigmatized by his appearance.

Sirens stirred the tempestuous silence with their piercing wails. Haku's nails scraped along the sidewalk as he curled his sliced fingers into a bloodied fist. Taking solace in the hope that he'd survive this, he let the tears he so hated to fall.

He wanted to see Zabuza.

But he didn't.

This was Zabuza's fault. All those years ago, finding him on the side of the street, panhandling for cash for himself and for Naruto - Zabuza had given him a proposition. Attack his abuser at the orphanage and show Zabuza what he was made of. He would be trained. He would earn money. More than with panhandling alone.

But this was Haku's fault, too, right? For giving into an equally impossible situation. For depending on this man to the very end. For not finding it within himself to carry on for himself, by himself.

Zabuza had to have known.

But Haku had no room left for disappointment. This was the present and it was waiting on him to answer it.

The sirens drew closer like a creeping migraine.

The numbness was setting in, survival taking over. "Let me see him." Zabuza's handgun, it was holstered beneath his right shoulder.

Gato snapped his fingers.

The tension in Haku's scalp subsided and the fifteen year old wobbled over to the trashed SUV. His vision blurred as his reddened, stinging eyes finally settled on Zabuza's unconscious form and he felt himself slowly shattering with every fatigued step.

The airbag hung limply across his lap, his head craned to the right like a ragdoll. That monstrous face had the softness of a deep, peaceful sleep, his flinty gaze once so sharp now vague and unfocused.

A single red hole stared back at him from the center of Zabuza's forehead, a thin trail of red running down across his lidded right eye.

Just like his father. No, this man might as well have been his...

Haku's lips curled across his clenched teeth. Growling sobs ripped over his stinging throat. He seethed and shuddered with frantic gasps, his bitter, clenched screams building atop one another as he shot his right arm through the driver's window, his fingers sliding over the familiar cold of a gun.

Haku snapped around, aiming the gun at his assailant, then Gato, then back at his assailant. The air cracked with a chorus of cocked guns and he found himself surrounded by police, over a dozen men ducking behind a barricade of six cars.

Haku's eyes darted from the dozen handguns aimed at him to the men standing before him, the men who more dangerous than god. Didn't they understand? He was the one in danger here!

Gato stared him down, unperturbed. The man beside him raised up his hands in surrender. He was smiling.

Haku's forefinger trembled as it moved towards the trigger.

"STOP! DROP YOUR WEAPON!"

Haku glanced aside. A man with broom-like silvery hair had moved in front of the barricade, his determined dark eyes a touch frantic as he aimed his gun straight ahead.

Kakashi gazed into the bottomless resignation before him, those gentle black eyes belying a lifetime of pain, and he felt like he'd seen this before. In Obito. In Rin. Kakashi's lips twisted in a determined frown, sweat beaded along his temples. " _Keibu_!" Kakashi called out to his superior officer. "Do we have a negotiator on the way?"

 _Negiotator?_  Haku bubbled a despaired laugh. "You think I'm holding a gun just so someone'll talk to me?" Haku's face squirmed and the resignation softened into a plea. "I need protection."

Kakashi could see that. This juvenile was missing his left pinky. An unusual sight on one so young. And one of the men on the other side of his gun was a loathsome individual that deserved to be menaced.

"We can protect you, but first I need you to place your gun on the ground."

Haku hesitated, unbidden tears falling across the spongy red skin of his scraped open cheeks. The memory of a promise made in a deserted, grassy plain flashed bright and beautiful in his mind. He wanted to keep that promise.

Kakashi's eyes followed the kid's slow and deliberate movements as he relinquished his weapon. "Alright, now keep your hands on your head and walk over towards me."

Drawing back up, he raised his hands to grasp the back of his head. He took a half step forward. Red mist burst from his chest. Something cracked against the sidewalk. He jerked to a stop. His arms fell at his sides. Those large, morbidly serene eyes were now pinpricks. The center of his chest was ragged, viscous, pouring blood, as if he'd been punched through his sternum. His gaze trembled upwards to connect with Kakashi's and his mouth parted open, drooling blood. His skin had taken on a sickly gray pallor. The sidewalk beneath him was flooded red. His knees crashed on the cement. And he collapsed face down.

Kakashi snapped his gun at the rooftop before them, cold desperation pounded the breath of out him as he scanned the windows, the ledges for the glint of a scope, a silhouette of a man. But what could he do from here with a mere handgun?

The chorus of crackling behind him went unnoticed.

"Hatake, stand down." Police Inspector Morino said.

" _Keibu_ , there's-!" It occurred to Kakashi. As he spun around, his worst assumptions came true. He was the only one reacting to the obvious threat looming above them.

His superior's grim face was unchanged in this moment. "It won't happen again. Stand down."

Everyone. They were all unaffected by this!

Kakashi snapped towards the body as if the kid might spring up at any moment, singing 'Just kidding!', but as minutes passed by, Kakashi felt the shackles of his past snake around him once more.

A hand like granite grasped his shoulder, forcing him back into the present. Morino placed his free hand over Kakashi's handgun and carefully pulled it from his slack grip. He handed it off over his shoulder to another officer. Morino stared hard into the face of Kakashi's disbelief, as if he was tasked with converting a lost soul to salvation.

"I need you to say that you shot him."

 _No. No, I,I…_  Rin's pallid face flashed before him, his chest rattling and aching with… He wasn't sure. He wanted to scream.  _"_ Sir. I  _don't_  kill children."

Morino's neck corded and reddened, his grip tightened like a bear trap, and his gaze was unforgiving. "You realize there'd be hysteria if the public knew, truly  _knew_ , what Gato is capable of. Think for a moment, dammit."

Unbelievable. Were they so easily in Gato's pocket now? "That  _kid_  is  _dead_ , s,sir."

Morino released him, shaking his head. He would make sure Kakashi would live up to the cover story eventually. He glanced over his shoulder as the Coroner finally rolled up to the scene.

"What kid, Hatake? As far as anyone's concerned, he never existed to begin with."

* * *

Boyish laughter rose and floated from the restaurant booth where five fourteen year old students sat, the air filled with the sizzling and popping of barbeque meat over a grill of hot coals.

Shikamaru had won the National Chess Tournament earlier that night and they had gathered to celebrate. To be exact, Naruto had been invited last minute while Sasuke had accompanied by default.

Kiba remained the strongest source of stories, jokes and shenanigans, but even in Naruto's withdrawn state, he fought to keep up with him. He fought against his urges to dwell and ruminate and chose to smile. He fought against his ever present creeping regrets and chose to laugh. And in the darkness of his mind, he chose to find the humor, often finding their shocked amusement to his morbid twistings to be highly rewarding.

It was the least he could do for his friends while they were still his to call friends.

Yet, there were still times where his hands itched to hold his phone, and like an alcoholic in need of a fix, he craved to dive back into chat with these no-name strangers who understood him, whom he understood in turn. They had become a family of sorts. One of loners, outcasts and misfits.

"Gotta take a leak." Naruto excused himself as he sidled out of the booth.

The loss of Naruto's presence was like the loss of a bridge between two lands. Sasuke sat alone as the three boys opposite of him carried on with their jokes and comments. He sipped his water, his eyes trailing over towards the restrooms at the back of the restaurant every few seconds.

It was painfully clear to the youngest Uchiha: His presence wasn't desired. But inviting himself into this uncomfortable air was more bearable than sinking into the label of being a loner. Yet more and more he seemed suited to it, cursed for it. It felt like his peers got dumber and less ambitious as the months went on, with Naruto being the primary example, and if Sasuke had to be honest with himself, he wanted nothing to do with them.

But when it came to Naruto, he couldn't just let it go. Not when they had been so synchronized in their childhood.

Naruto was unhappy, and he would only remain that way if he didn't go back to how he used to be. Naruto as a downward spiral was simply unacceptable.

Naruto exited the bathroom, thumbs flying and eyes glued to his phone screen. A half step in the wrong the direction and Naruto caught sight of the television mounted over the bar left of their booth.

It was news coverage of an intense event from earlier this morning. Six police cars had surrounded a massive head-on collision. There was glass, torn plastic and twisted metal everywhere. Steam billowed from the trashed engine. A standoff of some sort had occurred, a bloodied, long-haired individual stood in the center of the fray wielding a gun.

Naruto gravitated towards the screen, his brows knitting and throat tightening.  _Haku?_  The footage was shaky and distant, the individual's face was blurred but it had to be him.

Five men sat at the bar, entranced with the story as he was. One of these men turned to glance at him, concern pinching his features, but Naruto barely registered him.

The footage jumped ahead to a follow up interview with the Commissioner-General, an Uchiha no less, pushing sixty yet carrying himself proudly as if he were in his prime. He looked like a man carved from ivory and obsidian, as did they all.

" **We have Assistant Police Inspector Hatake to thank for his quick and decisive actions shown earlier today. Situations like these are rarely perfect. But today everyone got to home safely to their families-"**

The story was concluding as the camera returned to the anchorwoman in her modest blue pantsuit and three-inch heels.

Naruto's phone slipped from his hands. "Wait…" The clatter drew a circle of eyes around him. "C,Can someone rewind that? Someone?"  _No, don't stare at me! Tell me Haku's okay!_  They didn't get it. Of course they didn't. "N,Nevermind…" He bent down to pick it up and found that the screen was cracked.

When he did finally grab his phone, he hovered unsure for a second or so, then dazed, he began to walk; He walked straight out the front doors.

* * *

The yellow haze of the streetlights over the chipped concrete path fell away as Naruto wandered into an ill-maintained pedestrian tunnel. The shadowy walls were adorned in angular graffiti tags, acrylic murals and the shredded remnants of weather worn posters.

In the echoes of isolation, his soul sank into the blackness of night and he swore he might disappear for good.

He happened upon a worn and greasy square of cardboard; the go-to bed of the shelterless.

Dead leaves and bits of trash clung to the edges of the tunnel. The occasional empty can of beer or pile of cigarette butts also added to the sense of abandonment.

The glare of his phone screen no longer held the warm association of a portal to companionship, as the familiar numbers and name reflected back the gaping hole in his chest. His phone resembled a small, white, glowing soul, one that he would have to release if he was ever strong enough to do so.

The call took him straight to voicemail for the nineteenth time.

He held the phone to his ear as he turned into the wall, his forehead pressed against the concrete as tears trickled down his cold cheeks.

"H,Hey, look… I,I don't care about what h,happened before… I know you d,didn't let me die... Haku, y,you need to call me back… please. I want t,to talk. I just wanna talk to you again…"

Naruto slid to the ground, his legs woozy beneath the insurmountable heartache and he let his phone slip from his grasp yet again. He clutched his humid face, sniffling, gasping and shaking. Memories attacked him, the images overlapping, frantically flashing, breaking him in two. His palms slid up his face, revealing desperate, manic eyes. His chest heaved but no air filled his lungs. He ground the heels of his palms against his forehead. He pounded at his skull, growling, gritting and continually damning the locusts gnawing at his insides.

The tears he had long reserved for Jiraiya, for his parents, were now pouring out of him like a gaping wound that wouldn't close.

The radio signal, once sputtering with lonesome static for the past year, had finally gone silent.

* * *

The click of a lightswitch signaled the arrival of their owner.

Kakashi kicked off his shoes at the door.

The snuffing and yipping of eight dogs reached his ears, their nails clattering along the wood panelling as they scurried and mobbed to greet him. Wet noses prodded and nudged. Whines pleaded for food and walks. Pakkun scratched at his shin, silently asking to be carried.

His smile was weak as he shushed and brushed his palms across their feathered, plush heads. He pushed his way through mob, and trudged through the hall towards the kitchen.

Upon filling their bowls with kibble and water, Kakashi had collapsed in the center of his sofa, his old amber companion in a rectangular glass bottle seated before him on the coffee table. Yet he couldn't bring him to drink. Didn't see the point. Nothing would change.

If the truth of the world were this bright, all consuming light, then Kakashi was complacent to stay here in the shadowed cave of his home. Though his superior allowed him to take some time off, there was no comfort in it.

Gato had called up the Commissioner-General the night before, warning in so many words that he was about to 'clean house' and that they would be wise to cooperate with him. It was going to happen with or without them, and the logical decision had been to give the warmongering madman a pass on his brutality.

That kid… it was as his  _Keibu_ had said: What was one life - a criminal and an orphan no less - against the thousands of their good and productive citizenry? But Gato would continue to have his hand around their combined throats long as the casualties weren't innocents.

Kakashi clasped his eyes with his right hand, squeezing shut against the tightening sensation around them as a migraine snuck up on him and knocked at his temples.

Once upon a time he would have agreed with the sacrifice, with the covering and the lies. If it was necessary, the principles or lack thereof mattered little. History is always rewritten or embellished. No one ever knows the true story of anything. If the common good could be achieved by any means, so be it.

But then at some point he had become the man he had sought to avoid. After that he finally understood his father. And though he would still never reach the point that his father had, he struggled to find the worth to keep fighting.

But when Pakkun would jump on his lap, he reminded himself: What would happen to them if he disappeared?

He ran his palm over Pakkun's caramel fur, his grouchy, unimpressed mug helping to brush away the dirt that had buried Kakashi's smile.

 _It'd probably be bad if I got another dog_.

The neighbors often assumed he was a dog walker part-time. He'd always answered them vaguely.

Better he be a dog walker than a hoarder.

* * *

Naruto sat frigid and numb at the back of the class, the Civics & Ethics lecture falling deaf on his ears.

The female teacher glanced up from her lesson book and peered closely at him. Her eyes fluttered wide. "Uzumaki-kun?"

The entire class followed suit, chair legs squeaking and knocking as they turned and skewered him with their eyes.

Tears were flowing down his pallid cheeks in large rivulets. The soggy distortion of his notebook paper shown that they'd been flowing for some time.

* * *

Sasuke found the time to visit Naruto in the Infirmary. He'd been holed up for the past three hours and the utter desolation Sasuke witnessed earlier bothered him like an itchy shirt tag.

Sasuke stood before the bed, the curtain partially drawn, revealing Naruto sitting at the head of the bed, his face buried in his knees and head encircled by his arms.

Two years ago he thought if he ever told Naruto the truth about his parents, that he might look as lost and as wretched as he did now.

Breaking the silence was like poking a hole through the paper of a shoji door. There was an intrusiveness that did not belong here between two close friends, but they both felt it.

"What's going on with you?"

Nothing. Naruto didn't even shake his head. Sasuke departed and returned with a chair. Sitting down, he waited as if at any moment the gates to a closed off village would open and accept him.

Then Naruto found his voice buried beneath his grief and hesitancy. In his attempts to forget what had happened at the arboretum, Naruto had to put a lot of things out of his mind. But now the thing that'd been nagging him for months in shadowy whispers was screaming at him, forcing him to deal with it.

"Sasuke… you wanted to hang out with Haku… but then you never asked about him again. I always thought that was weird."

Sasuke's spine stiffened as he crossed his arms. "Got busy. Forgot about him."

"... I really wanted him to have friends. I was worried for him, so I was really happy you showed interest... But you didn't mean it, did you?" Naruto lifted his head from his knees, his squinty, reddened eyes piercing through Sasuke. "What did you get out that?"

Sasuke's mouth twisted. "I was looking out for you."

Naruto's eyes flickered side to side as if searching for an anomaly, a tell, anything to prove that this person before him was not the best friend he knew, but someone who looked like him. "I don't get it."

Sasuke titled his head and narrowed his eyes.

"I don't. I don't fucking get it. You..." Naruto's shoulders bounced with a sorrowful, confused laugh. "Why? Wh,What if Itachi died tomorrow? Would you be alright with that? You wouldn't, right?! You,You realize the time you took away from us?!  _So what did you get out of that?!_ "

A familiar old rage licked to life, one that Sasuke had been raging against Itachi these past few weeks, as it became more and more clear that their family was broken beyond repair.

As Sasuke leaned away, he was distinctly aware of the cold weight bearing down on his chest, and his mind began to slide partitions in place, blocking off the mess of emotions before they mixed into mud. "Nothing, apparently," Sasuke unfolded his arms and pushed off the chair, turning for the door. "Go and be loyal to a corpse like my failure of a brother then-"

"You know he's dead!" Naruto scrambled out of the bed, his mind strangling itself apart as his shoes clapped on the linoleum. "You know he was murdered by police!"

Sasuke trailed to a stop. His head dropped slightly to the left, his hair obscured his expression. "Change your words. Police don't  _murder_."

"Oh, who the fuck cares?!"

If there had ever been a fissure between him and Sasuke, it had grown and crumbled, leaving them stranded on their side of land. And yet, in a single instance, it seemed as though Sasuke had jumped over that canyon, his fists wrenching at Naruto's collar. His black eyes narrowed to deathly slits. "It's hard, thankless work and I'm sick of people like you jerking off to your own misfortunate and blaming it on the world. If I hear you slander the police again, I'm knocking you flat." Sasuke released him with a shove, taking small satisfaction in seeing him stumble, then he turned and stalked out the door.

The thin black hand on the wall clock ticked softly in the silence, and Naruto was struck with the sense that nothing had changed. That for all the good that had entered his life, there had been an equal exchange of loss. He was standing on a spindly pillar of rock with no way down.

And in a defeatist way, he accepted it.

At least up here, he was alone.

No one could take advantage of him anymore.

* * *

Naruto observed Sasuke as he worked his way through the classroom, mingling with each and every classmate that he never spoke to like some sycophantic politician. They treated their Class Rep with due respect, but the spectrum of pinched eyes and stiff smiles expressed their confusion: Why is he talking to us?

Naruto turned towards the window, cheek resting against his knuckles. He was biding his time, waiting for Sasuke to leave the room. When the Uchiha finally did, Naruto got up from his seat and approached the last group Sasuke had spoke to.

"That made me really uncomfortable." said a girl as she laughed off the experience.

"Yeah, that was really rand-" A boy paused and perked up at his presence. "Oh hey, Uzumaki. Ahh, forget what we were saying." The boy sheepishly held his right hand vertically in front of his nose.

"Actually, I was wondering if that was weird for you as it was weird for me."

The girl and three boys leaned in closely, forming a conspiratorial circle and Naruto got to his knees as the whispers began.

"So you don't know what that was about?" said the girl.

Naruto rarely acted on his spite. A whole year spent half dead trying to forget and be a good person, when deep down he wanted to rage and shatter jaws and objects, had finally left him bitter. He'd taken the high road all the way to the cliff, and now he had no choice but to turn back around.

As if his mind was full of carbon monoxide, slips of the gas came in the form of his words, and he expected to see Sasuke choke on it. "Well, he's friendless, can't you tell? I mean, he was popular once, so for him he can't be anything less."

"That's typical of an Uchiha, huh?" one boy pulled away, looking vexed. "My dad keeps complaining about one at his law firm. He'd immediately been offered the promotion my dad was fighting to get for five years, and the guy is ten years his junior. I've yet to hear the end of it."

"Seriously? That's fucked." Naruto said.

"Well, it seems almost natural. Uchiha, they're like purebreds, y'know? Everyone wants one to work for them."

"But that's not supposed to happen. I don't blame your dad. That guy he can't stand, shouldn't matter if he's Uchiha or a damn genius, seniority's supposed to be everything," Naruto's jaw shifted to the side, and he popped his right fist atop his right palm. "He clearly got fastracked. Dude, encourage your dad to dig into that shit."

"Like a whistleblower?"

"Hell yeah. I mean, everyone has a weakness. I guarantee you your dad can find that guy's. It'd help to be friendly. For example, Sasuke and I've been friends since we were eight," Naruto's suggestion garnered interest to the point they seemed to be hanging on his every word, and he was starting to see that maybe he had a talent after all, one that Sasuke couldn't hope to copy nor best him at: Charisma. "And the truth is, the stoic ones are the most sensitive. When Haruno and him go over announcements next week, you guys should try invalidating him during his speech to see what I mean."

And so a week passed and the Class Rep Couple stood at the head of the class, papers in hand, ready to inform their classmates of any future events, test dates and budgets for the Summer Cultural Festival.

Sasuke was a few lines into his speech when a boy in the center of the room cupped his mouth and booed. Sasuke's brow twitched as he fumbled with the next word, before pushing forward. Two girls and three boys echoed the first boo.

Iruka uncrossed his arms, glaring sternly at the disobedience before him. "Hey, knock it off!"

"Uchiha, you're too monotone!"

That hit a nerve. Naruto watched as Sasuke lowered the papers, effectively piling on the stoicism to mask his bewilderment.

"We wanna hear Haruno-san!"

"Yeah, Haruno should do the announcements only from now on!"

The class began to chant Sakura's name, a tinge of pink coloring her cheeks. The papers crinkled in Sasuke's grip before he snapped them in her direction. Seeming unaffected by his temper, she gently accepted the papers, smoothed them out, and resumed announcements by herself.

Naruto hadn't expected to see his former, pink friend proudly beaming as she was now.

Was she feeling overshadowed by him too?

As Sasuke's gaze scanned the room for an explanation, he stopped over Naruto, and the blonde raised his middle finger, grinning cheekily.

Naruto looked forward to his retaliation. He wanted this to get worse. Because once Sasuke reached his lowest point and showed everyone the dickhead he truly was, there was no getting back up from it.

* * *

It didn't take long for the class to turn against Sasuke. Mister perfect face, perfect grades. Naruto had taken the time to target each and everyone's secret insecurities and amplified them. He encouraged them not to be shy to their true feelings, and they eventually grew to embrace the inner power they didn't know they had.

It got to the point that when Sasuke entered a room, no one noticed him, no one looked up. No one said hello.

* * *

Gym class.

Track and Field.

And Naruto still sucked at running.

There was so much ugliness coursing through Sasuke's veins that the moment he caught sight of that dandelion-headed disappointment, Sasuke began to gun for him like a speeding bullet.

Nothing else existed but his fist smashing into the back of Naruto's skull.

Shrieks and shouts from their classmates rose up like a frightened flock of birds. The same feelings from before - the time he bested Lee, and the mirror house with Haku - hit him a millionfold, and Sasuke burned up with pride. He knew this feeling was all he needed in the world.

The moment Naruto pushed up against the dirt, Sasuke stomped on his back.  _You were such a waste of my time._  Sasuke threw his toe into Naruto's ribs, his teeth gritted when no sound reached his ears and he slammed his toe harder, and harder, like he was starving for retribution.

Still, Naruto continued to stifle his groans. As the blonde pushed up again, Sasuke kicked at his sternum, flipping the failure onto his back. He stomped on his chest, and Naruto's eyes bulged. The memories of that snuff film, the one starring Naruto's parents no longer sickened Sasuke. In fact, he couldn't get it out of his head as he pinned Naruto's upper arms with his knees and gripped his face, forcing his thumbs against the blonde's eyelids. Sasuke knew what power was, and this was it.

Blood. He wanted to see it.

Sasuke had no idea how hard Naruto had been biting his tongue until a glob of red phlegm shot from the blonde's mouth and struck Sasuke between the eyes. Sasuke swiped at the gunk and raised a fist. He struck Naruto in the mouth. And he couldn't extricate his knuckles from the blonde's teeth. Naruto's fingertips clawed at the ground till they bled as Sasuke smashed away at his face with his left hand. Naruto didn't care if this made him look like an animal, he would bite his fingers off if possible.

"-eacher, hurry! Hurry!"

"STOP! UCHIHA, GET OFF OF HIM!"

Two sets of firm hands clasped around Sasuke's arms and shoulders, and Naruto relaxed his bear trap of a jaw, allowing the teachers to haul Sasuke away.

Sasuke would eventually find himself seated next to a bruised and glowering Naruto in the Principal's office, both awaiting disciplinary action.

"Y'know, I think I'll really miss you someday," Naruto said, earning a dubious glare. It sure hurt to talk. Naruto's teeth ached as if they'd been tugged with pliers. His head felt like a bell that had been struck with a hammer, throbbing and piercing his eyes and ears. How much worse could this get? Did Sasuke feel any remorse at all? No? "... Right after you found a rooftop and jumped from it."

Their principal entered the room to find Sasuke holding Naruto but the collar, raising yet another fist towards him. "Uchiha-kun, please settle down!"

Terse silence dragged on like a funerary procession.

The portly man with the grey 'power donut' hairstyle leaned against the front of his desk, arms crossed and shaking his head wearily.

"This is a very serious matter. But because this is both of your first offenses, and I can't seem to get a hold of either of your parents-" The icy glare Naruto shot him caused their Principal to squirm. He coughed. "... Or guardians, I'd like to try something out: Perform the Seal of Reconciliation and I'll let this violent incident slide."

Naruto's lips curled over his teeth as he tilted his head to the left. "The what now?"

"Oh, I know it's archaic, but do humor me. It'll prove to me that you two made up. C'mon, you two, it's easy." The Principal emphasized his point by demonstrating the gesture himself.

It looked really stupid.

Naruto wouldn't look at Sasuke. He didn't need to in order to know that the uppity douche was just as against this as he was.

Naruto rolled his eyes as he slung his bag over his shoulder. He stood up and turned for the door. "Fuck this-"

"Uzumaki! I've been very generous! If you walk out now, then don't come back for two weeks!"

Naruto's hand paused over the doorknob, the frigid figure of his former friend sitting in the corner of his eye like a bad omen. "What about him?"

When their Principal fumbled to answer, Naruto turned the knob and the left.

 _Figures._  Seemed like almost everyone was afraid to touch the omnipresent Uchiha name.

* * *

Obito found Naruto sullen over a bowl of salt ramen, recklessly dressed in his school uniform. Luckily for him, Obito had shed his uniform for black jogging pants and a fitted white tee.

He slid onto an empty stool beside the teen, cupping his chin in his palm.

"Welcome!" Called the owner as he stirred a deep pot of broth. Obito smiled and nodded.

"Two beers and gyoza."

"Coming right up."

Obito observed the shifty glares Naruto threw his way from the corner of his eye, never letting on. "Is that for flavor?" Obito teased.

Naruto shrank away and directed his glare to his bleeding fingertips. He'd smeared blood all over his plastic chopsticks. "Are you following me?"

"Hm? This is my jurisdiction," Obito faced Naruto and flashed him a cheeky grin that Naruto knew to be wholly sarcastic. A guy as emotionally blunted as Sasuke would only be expressive if it were being done for effect. "Well, perhaps we've passed each other on the street all along but never noticed until we got acquainted. Now it's like we can't help but run into each other."

"No idea what you're talking about."

Obito dropped the grin. "What's with your fingers?"

"Happened."

"Uh-huh. Always going it alone to the bitter end, huh? I think you're  _too_  devoted to the virtue of  _gaman_. But a kid like you surely has friends to rely on."

"Nope," Two pint glasses filled with golden liquid, topped with a white foamy head, clinked on the counter in front of Obito, followed by a small tray of pan-fried dumplings. Naruto eyed him skeptically as he raised a glass to his lips and took a swig. "Ain't it too early to be drinking?"

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

Naruto pulled away and kept his mouth shut. He gripped his bowl and raised it to his mouth, tipping it back the same time Obito tipped back his glass. Their respective dishes clattered against the counter and they sighed.

Naruto never thought much about Obito. First time they met Naruto was scared, untrusting. The officer carried himself enigmatically, like he were ulterior motives personified. But Naruto had grown used to his sporadic yet reliable presence, and it was hard to hold a wall up long enough around him.

"Naruto. Remember what I said the day I gave you my business card?" Obito faced Naruto, his dark eye like water at the bottom of a well, muted emotions drifting in their depths. "You can trust me."

Naruto's lips pressed into a hard line, his brows knitting as if he were hanging onto the final inch of that steel cable, his palms hot and bloody and his shoulders tired of the burden. He turned away, staring into the puddle of broth at the bottom of his bowl. "No promises."

* * *

Despite his reluctance, Naruto found himself in the entryway of Obito's apartment, clutching the strap of his schoolbag as he appraised his surroundings.

An older model of flat screen tv rested on a low black console against the left wall. A kotatsu with a dark blue comforter sat before it, it's surface occupied by a meager stack of case files and empty beer bottles. The half wall that kept the kitchen in view from the den wasn't much better; loose stacks of mail, and his police uniform draped over it.

"What's the problem?" Obito called from somewhere down the hall.

"Uh, em…" Naruto bit back a reply as he worked his shoes off. The tip of his sock had been weirdly sticky after gym class.

He hadn't so much threatened Sasuke as he had joked about lobbing a shot put at his face. But when one of the teachers was escorting the vengeful Uchiha away, the other startled Naruto and he had dropped the ball on his foot. Now his sock was stiff with a dark red stain.

He bent down, removing his sock then curled his leg upwards so he could inspect where the blood had come from.  _Shit._  His big toe was black, the edges crusted with dark red. But at least it clotted, to his reluctant relief, and he remained in the entryway. "Hey, what do you do for something like this?"

"Something like what?" Obito crossed the threshold, his gaze dropping down. "Huh."

* * *

Naruto was grateful for Obito's aloof attitude, strange as that concept seemed. He felt respected for it. If Obito were any nicer, Naruto was sure he would just run away and never look back.

As Naruto sat on the toilet cover, fumbling with the gauze over his toe, Naruto decided to shoot from the hip. "So how'd your face get fucked up?"

Obito languished lotus-style on the floor outside the bathroom door, yet another beer bottle in his hand.

Obito leaned forward, dangling the beer bottle by the neck as his expression turned somber. "Bullies," Obito pulled back and smirked as Naruto narrowed his eyes at him. "I'm serious. I was on a field trip in the Northwestern forests, and on the second day they were dicking around up on a ledge while I stood alone in the clearing below," The smirk fell away, and Obito's demeanor hardened. "There was a landslide aaand," Obito pounded the bottle onto the hardwood, and Naruto jolted away. "There goes half of me."

"Half?!" Naruto's gaze darted over his right arm and neck, expecting to find grotesque scars like he saw on his face. Admittedly there were some pale stripes of scar tissue along his forearm, but they didn't match up in severity. "And you were really just standing there?! Was it an accident or were they really trying to kill you?!"

"Could have been both. Even malicious people are prone to miscalculation," A chill trickled across Naruto's back as Obito's gaze became flat and unseeing, an undercurrent of resentment growling below the apathy. "I tried to tell the teachers during the hike. All the times they joked about shoving me in the river or dangled me over a sheer cliffside... It was like they were pumping themselves up to really kill me," Obito leaned his cheek against his knuckles and sighed. "Well, that's the past. I'm not who I used to be, but I'm better for it."

"Really?" That came out more curious, more wondrous than intended, and the dubious one-eyed glance he received made him squirm.

"I bet you can't wait to grow up, huh? You wanna fast forward now, get to the part where everything is just okay or pretty good, and being alone doesn't hurt a lick, huh?"

"Yeah…" Naruto couldn't help but picture his future against Obito's present, couldn't help but yearn to reach the point where he could shed his past, all his regrets like a sleeve of dead skin and become someone who didn't answer to no one, who didn't have to apologize for his existence. "Sergeant, did you have any friends?"

Obito shrugged, his frown settling deeper into his features. "Just one... But she gave up," His eyes narrowed as if he were trying to bring the ghost of his pain into focus. "I never knew I mattered so little to her until I heard the news. Don't go for the sweet ones, Naruto. They'll lead you astray."

Naruto withdrew into himself and resumed bandaging his toe when Obito scooted forward and took the gauze from his hands. He watched the man straighten his wrappings, fitting them tighter as he wound the remainder around the ball of his foot and hooked it in place. Then Obito flicked at Naruto's wound, eliciting a startled yelp.

"Asshole!" Naruto gripped his foot, glaring as Obito grinned cheekily and spun down the hall like a child.

"Put an icepack on thaaat!"

Naruto then recognized the pockets of warmth that seemed to burst out of nowhere, and though a wave of nausea accompanied these pleasant bursts, he was hardly inclined to shy away from it.

Suddenly, the rocky pillar was no longer so spindly.

* * *

All the lights in the home were turned off save for the square paper lantern above the dining table where Itachi sat, grasping an empty bowl of a meal eaten alone. There was a hairline crack in the black ceramic. If he were to be careless, it could break entirely.

A month has passed since Sasuke moved back in with their father. And Itachi knew that somehow he had been careless.

Between having a mother who did not want to be found and an unavailable father who only saw his children as extensions of his own legacy, Itachi had sought to bring up Sasuke right. He was used it after all, from the day his little brother was born; Itachi had always been his sole caretaker.

But for all his effort and good intentions, Itachi had failed.

When Sasuke finally realized some time ago that the sidewalk in the photo of Shisui's place of death was the same sidewalk beneath Sasuke's bedroom balcony, Itachi saw the full extent of venom in his brother's eyes.

" _Why did I assume you moved out on your own." Sasuke had the same hard eyes as their father._

_Itachi hesitated beside the kitchen sink, his right hand submerged in a plastic basin of wet uncooked rice that he'd been rinsing. He opened his mouth but Sasuke bulldozed over him, his brother's hands balled up at his sides._

" _What did you leave us for?"_

_Itachi turned away, sighing through his nose. His pulled his hand from the grains and shook off the water. "You know I was going to take you in as soon as I could, and I did. Mom and dad were already having problems, I just made sure you never saw any of it."_

" _Liar."_

_Itachi turned towards his brother once again. "Sasuke, I'm not-"_

" _Even so, all I remember was you and dad fighting. You never even tried to see his side of things-"_

" _Of course I did! And he was always wrong!"_

" _And what was taking me away from them for?! Mom won't talk to me! I don't know what the hell is going on! And you don't care because you abandoned us the first second you could! The only person I can trust is dad! He's the only that cares."_

_That was it then, Itachi thought. Even through separation, Sasuke was not immune to their father's emotional twistings._

_Sasuke turned away and began to exit the kitchen, calling over his shoulder. "You're no better than he his, but at least he didn't leave."_

Itachi wondered if that was true. Had he been fighting with his father even up until now? Sasuke was the final connection they had to each other, even if they stopped speaking, stopped wanting to see each other. To the very end, Sasuke had been a vehicle for their feud, though Itachi never viewed it that way, had never thought he had any such intentions.

But he never did let Sasuke choose back then. He had visited Sasuke at his elementary school before their mother could take him home. He had given Sasuke the attention and promises his little brother had longed for, and used it against him. Told him  _'Come live with me. It'll be more fun to be around your big brother all the time, right?'_

Itachi scratched at the rift in the ceramic bowl until hard bits of dust and clay settled atop the wooden dining table. He scratched and scratched until the perfect edge chipped off.  _Careless. Careless. Careless._

If Itachi was truly no better than his father, if their moral one-upmanship was all that mattered to them both, then why did this hurt so much?

Why did he still feel like he was in the right?

* * *

**Nanabi: This is goodbye, chat family!**

**Nibi: Oh, how come?**

**Kyūbi: What?! Where're you going?! How long?!**

**Nanabi: I just received my final mission. So I won't be coming back anymore.**

**Kyūbi: What?! I don't get it! You can still talk to us even after, right?**

**Nanabi: Sorry, but them's the rules.**

**Nanabi: Kyūbi, you're almost at the final mission too, aren't you?**

**Nanabi: Keep at it. Something wonderful awaits you.**

* * *

Three months passed since Haku died. Naruto found himself spending more and more time in Obito's presence, often heading to his apartment after school to the point that Naruto no longer used his own.

Naruto sat the kotatsu, his right eye swollen, black and shiny from another scuffle with Sasuke, as he laughed over a take-out carton of  _karaage_.

"- so now, everyone's calling him a  _chuunibyou_  cuz of what I said! Ah, but then I had to step in, 'cuz this one guy got cocky enough to ask Sasuke if he was the Evil Eye type or Subculture type, and his stupid face got so red! He nearly choked the guy out!"

Obito pinched a beer bottle from the mouth and raised it. Naruto lifted his bottle and they clinked. The blonde Uzumaki was nearly fifteen and Obito didn't see the harm.

"Wish I had your luck when I was your age." Obito put the bottle to his mouth and knocked it back.

Naruto smirked as he brushed his nails against the breast of his uniform. "If by  _luck_ , you mean charm, then yes, you do wish you were charming like me."

Obito tossed a puffed rice cracker at Naruto, and it clung to his hair. Naruto scooped up the snack and threw it back then he reached for another cracker. "Hey, hey, take off your eyepatch. I wanna aim for a hole in one."

Obito clutched his stomach, bending forward, gut-rumbling laughter spilling from his chest.

Naruto popped the cracker at his mouth, but it glanced off his cheek. He frowned at the thing like it was a bird that died flying into a window. "You ever thought you could store snacks in there? Like one day you're just sitting at work, you flip open your eyepatch and you pull out a stick of  _Pocky_? And like, you tell everyone you got a pocket dimension full of dango and candy."

Obito's forehead landed against the heel of his palm, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. Sighing, he lifted his half empty bottle of beer and placed it near Naruto mostly full bottle. "Here, brat, have some more. Keep talking shit."

The tepid smirk on Obito's face cut at Naruto's heart like a dull blade across rope. Obito was nothing like Sasuke. But sometimes he looked like him. Sometimes, Naruto remembered what they used to be like.

The memories came down on Naruto like a seven ton wave, and he shrank into himself, his palms meeting his wet eyes.

Happy times. He used to have that. What were they like? They hurt so much. They strangled the very breath from his lungs. Happy times. Happy times. When Naruto kept gaining more friends, more love. When Sasuke really had been a brother to him. Where did he go? Why did that Sasuke have to leave him?

Naruto's shoulders shook as he quietly gasped, trying but failing to keep himself together. Alcohol was a treacherous thing.

"I really thought that he wanted to be friends with Haku… I believed him and he lied to my face… I never should have trusted him," His breathing hitched, and the sobs rolled out uncontrollably. "I,I let Haku get bullied! I let it happen! He tried to kill himself! We were supposed to protect each other!"

Naruto could feel himself dying all over again as he curled against the kotatsu, his fingernails biting into his scalp. Naruto lived by his principles. They were all he had. They were who he was. This sin would never wash away. He would live and die a failure, a man who couldn't protect his precious people. What was he even good for? What did he deserve anymore?

Obito sidled up alongside Naruto and placed his palm atop the broken boy's head. He pulled the boy close till his tears soaked the front of his shirt and Naruto's sturdy shoulders quaked beneath his hand.

Obito wondered how long Naruto had until he stopped being the kind person that he was.

Obito rested his chin atop Naruto's head as he rubbed the boy's back, the empty reassurances dangling on the tip of his tongue but never finding their way to Naruto's ears.

Instead he played them over and over inside his head, as if to comfort himself.

He understood Naruto perfectly.

* * *

Obito killed the kitchen lightswitch, plummeting his home in darkness. Not that he noticed such things. In a way this was true reality; Murky and vague. Much like the collectivist world he'd been rejected from, the blanket of shadows merged and obscured his surroundings, forcing him to navigate blindly. Half-blindly?

 _Geez, now I'm making jokes._  Obito circled around the half-wall, observing Naruto's huddled form beneath the kotatsu, the dark comforter pulled up to his ear. The boy had cried himself to sleep.  _You're everything I used to be._

Obito turned away, making his way towards his bedroom.

A single futon sat in the center of the room beneath the blue glow of his large digital clock. Opposite of the closets that lined the right wall sat his low, wood desk, his laptop dutifully charging upon his return.

He sat down atop his ankles, unfolding the laptop and temporarily blinding himself with its glow. He typed and moused around, checking e-mails and bills, then eventually he pulled up a website, carbon black and minimalist in design.

He moused over to a private message, a reply to be exact.

Sometime ago, he had asked her:  **"Think of the first person you loved, and the last person you hated. Are they the same person?"**

And she had answered:  **"Yes. It's my good for nothing caretaker."**

Obito fished his smartphone from his back pocket and typed in the phone number she had provided. Seconds later, a quiet voice answered him, raspy with sleep and hopelessness.

" _Hello?"_  She sounded like she had spent the whole day in tears. They all sounded this way when they reached the end.

"Hello, Fuu-chan. Are you ready?"

A sniffle and a restrained whine passed through the speaker as she sighed.  _"Yes, Admin, I'm ready I'm ready I'm so ready."_

Obito drummed his fingers atop his desk in the silence.

"Good."

* * *

Second term of his third year was drawing to a close. His junior high life would be over soon, transitioning into something vague and uncertain and Naruto found himself stuck in front of Iruka's desk after school, gaze glued to the empty space between them.

In the blur of his periphery, Iruka sat hunched forward with his hands clasped atop his desk, his inner brows pulled up into his forehead like a doctor with bad news.

Naruto had an idea what they were going to talk about. His grades had plummeted recently. Being suspended for two weeks was one thing, but he had taken an extra week off voluntarily. A lot of familiar, sleepless nights walking through parks, just him and his shadow.

"Naruto, I'm concerned about your behavior lately." Iruka prayed it wasn't too late for the blonde. These past few weeks witnessing his willful disruption of social harmony had shaken Iruka. He had seen too much of Mizuki in Naruto's actions. Any more of this and he feared the real Naruto, the good Naruto, would disappear.

Naruto rolled his right shoulder, his head craned back and tilting to the right so he was looking down his nose. "Yeah? Tell me why that's my problem."

Iruka's thumbs pressed into the top of his hands. "Because even if you don't see it  _now_ , it will be your problem-"

"Oh, oh, nah, I see what this is now. Your pride as a teacher is on the line, isn't it? You can't have me dropout or fail to move up-"

"That is  _not_  why I'm speaking to you now-!"

"Why are you speaking to me at all?!" Naruto uncrossed his arms and threw his hands up. "You were so quick at the beginning to try and paint me as the problem child! Now you realize 'Oh shit, that's gonna reflect badly on me, isn't it?' -  _five months_  before graduation! Even if you genuinely care about me all of a sudden, I  _don't fucking care_ ," Naruto sighed and shook his head at his stunned teacher. Did he really think this was going to be that easy? Too little, too late, wasn't it? "You know that I have more money than I know what to do with? My existence is moot. Your purpose with me is  _moot_. I don't need a diploma. I don't need a job. I,I can fuck around for the rest of my life! I can pay off my problems! Do you get it yet,  _Sensei_?"

Naruto grasped the edge of Iruka's desk and pushed off as he stood up. He grabbed his schoolbag and began to make his escape.

"I heard you got on the kickboxing team last year. You did, right?"

Naruto paused a few feet from the sliding doors. "So?"

"I thought that was a big deal for you."

"I quit."

Iruka startled like someone had snuck up from behind and jostled his chair.

Naruto's shoulders drooped then tensed as he tried to bury his shame beneath his resignation. It was old news at this point anyways. "I wasn't at the minimum weight requirement. So I… sewed weights into my waistband before getting measured. The guy I beat called me out. I got scared. So I quit. I didn't want people to think I can't win on my own."

Iruka rose from his chair, brows pinching and lips flattening into a thin line. "Naruto. You still bested that guy. On your  _own_." Iruka's eyes ached and he was urged to duck beneath his palms. He couldn't soothe the undulating guilt crushing his chest. Iruka hung his head, fingers curled into fists atop the wooden surface, his jaw clenching. "You were never big enough back then… But Naruto, think about what you just told me. You were smaller than the guy you defeated."

Heat tightened and pulsed from Naruto's chest up to his eyes, which stung. He cleared his throat, and even then pushing words through his throat was like pushing dough through a straw. "Hey, yeah. And I'm smaller than you, aren't I? Sensei, how many black eyes you got growing up? I honestly stopped counting mine."

Iruka pounded once against the desk. "Stop it! Naruto, I'm just looking out for you-!"

" **SHUT UP**!"

He didn't need to hear this from anyone.

Couldn't trust anyone.

Couldn't trust them.

He didn't want anyone in his corner. Didn't want anyone cheering him on.

Not anymore.

He was always alone. And he was just fine on his own.

Everyone just wanted something  _from_  him, expected something  _of_  him. They never saw  _him_.

He was tired of this.

He was never good enough. Never bad enough. Always somewhere in between.

There and not there.

Negation personified.

"You know what sucks about being your student? The thought that you might try to share in some of my successes."

Heated exasperation blew through Iruka's teeth. He scratched between his eyes, wondering if persistence was an option. "Naruto, I wasn't trying to call you a 'fuck-up', but are you saying you'll become one just to spite me?"

A funny question. The answer was probably 'yes', but depending on the intensity of Iruka's investment it could be a 'no'. Naruto wondered if he had always been this contrarian. The desire to impress, shock or troll always seemed to stem from one whim to another. Somehow, he was consistent in his inconsistencies. And he had no apologies for that.

Naruto reached the partition, his hand resting inside the circular handle. Only one person's opinion was beginning to matter to Naruto, and it sure as hell wasn't Scar Face's.

Naruto tsked. "I'll be whatever the fuck I want, so don't rush me."

* * *

Naruto hated his birthday.

He hated the way the news reminded him of how many people died that day, how some areas were still quartered off, scorched and blackened to the ground with no restoration in sight.

Some people feared these places to be cursed with the innumerable souls that haunted it. Others saw it as a testament of their nation's resilience. Regardless, it was a shitty reminder that made it nearly impossible for him to have a normal birthday.

His old green goggles pulled over his eyes and black hoodie drawn over his head, Naruto squatted inside a local bookstore in front of the  _Shonen_  section, a bi-monthly  _Advanced_  magazine parted over his knees.

The hum of an irrelevant conversation from a small television on the cashier counter switched over to the clear enunciations of a news anchor. And as if trained to catch the news, Naruto's attention immediately switched from what he was seeing to what he was hearing.

" **Two bodies were discovered earlier today in Kotakimura-ku, one a young man and the other a fourteen year old girl,"**  Naruto pulled away from the magazine, an ominous sensation like black sludge settling heavy and cold in his gut.A college-aged male stood at the end of the aisle, his gazed afixed towards the counter.  **"Neighbors had complained of a lingering, foul stench for some time, prompting the landlord to investigate. The man's identity will be released tomorrow. The police are deeming it a murder-suicide."**

 _A nasty stench for some time? Weather's not cold yet, maybe it couldn't have been that long?_ Naruto questioned himself. Maybe he was just being paranoid. "Hey," Naruto called out to the young man some feet away. "They showing pictures?"

The college student paused, reassembling Naruto's question in his head until they made sense before he replied. "No. Just the apartment where it happened."

Naruto turned away, dumbly gazing at the printed panels in his magazine.

He missed talking to Nanabi.

* * *

The smallest bit of purpose raced through his blood and swelled inside his chest as Naruto sprinted up Edahanishi District's First Investigation Division of the Criminal Affairs Bureau where Obito worked.

It was a towering slate gray box with five silver horizontal lines for upper office windows. The vestibule was recessed beneath the jettying, glossy, black glass doors sliding open and closed as beat cops and citizens flowed in and out like bees out of a nest.

As he ran inside, he slowed to a jog through the main hall. Blue shirts with proud postures and vexed expressions surrounded him on either side. They flowed like water through the various offices.

The main hall opened up into a wide single floor with a vaulted ceiling, the steel beam structures polished to a satin finish. Four by seven rows of a fluorescent lights hung from thin chains, eliminating any remaining shadows that the twenty-something computer monitors throughout could not.

Naruto caught sight of that familiar cyclops several desks towards the back right and his lips tugged into his cheeks.

A lithe teen male no bigger than he bumped into his left side, sparking Naruto's ire. Turning around, lips parted and ready to cuss, he nearly mistook the guy for Sasuke and quieted when he realized he never saw this kid before.

Skin as white as paper. Straight black hair parted from the side and stopping around his ears. Blank black eyes and solemn pout. He wore all black, from his long hoodie and cropped shirt, to his fitted cropped jeans and hightop sneakers. He carried a sizeable sketchbook in his right hand and wore a black canvas messenger bag across his body, the corners and edges of it frayed like old denim.

"Dickless." He turned around and resumed his leave.

Naruto sputtered, and his face burned as his arm muscles tensed for a fight. But his feet stayed heavy to the ground. His upper lip curled. "Twink!" Naruto ignored the scandalized stares and moved on.

Blonde hair and a blinding grin caught Kakashi's eyes as he exited Morino's office with three case files tucked against his left side, and he slowed to a stop.

Never did he get to see that kid until now, and no longer did he resemble anything like that photo from back then.

His was face still round, but it was fuller, healthier. His eyes had a gleeful spark to them, mischievous and a touch sarcastic. He spoke loudly and with a brashness often seen amongst the curfew-abhorring delinquents that roamed the midnight streets.

This kid, who clearly had rapport with Kakashi's underling partner, made Obito smile in a way not seen in years. The otherwise solemn Uchiha reached out and ruffled the blonde's unruly hair, prompting a laugh and an embarrassed retreat.

A twinge inside Kakashi's chest went unnoticed as he began to see flashes of Minato where the kid stood, and it was so strange, as if their world had become inverted during his sleep.

" _Keibu-ho_  Hatake," said  _Keibu_  Morino as he appeared flanked by two beat cops with dire expressions. "I need you to follow these men."

" _Keibu?_ "

Like a stoneface succumbing to the pressures of nature, Ibiki's brows sank over his eyes. "A Hyuuga has been found de-"

"W,Wait," said the blonde teen, stopping just as he and Obito were leaving the building. His voice was pitched with incredulity and despair. "Is that the guy?"

Kakashi's shoulders stiffened. Though Ibiki still spoke to him, Kakashi no longer heard a single word relayed to him.

"Naruto, don't." Obito placed a hand on the kid's upper arm, but the blonde jerked away and shouted louder, drawing all eyes towards him.

"That's him, right?! No, don't fucking-!" Naruto pulled away and marched past Obito. Obito grabbed his arm and tugged him back. This forced Naruto to lunge forward from his grip as he snarled like a pitbull choking itself on its chain. "Hey, you! You're goddamn piece of shit, you know that?!"

Minato would never say these words to him. Not even for Rin. But Kakashi always thought he should have.

"You look at one kid and decide he's bad! You look at him and think 'well, let's just get rid of him', right?!"

"Don't make a scene, dammit."

"No! Fuck you!" Naruto tugged and jerked forward with everything he had, sneakers scraping along the linoleum. "Haku was the sweetest guy I ever knew! You fucking killed him!" He ripped his arm away and whirled on Obito. "The hell're you defending him for?! Doesn't it make you sick you gotta work with this guy?!" He shoved the man away, his entire being boiling like a volcano.

Naruto pushed past Obito and stormed off, dragging a rumbling black cloud behind him, his footsteps like thunderclaps.

This wasn't Minato who was hating him for all the wrong reasons. And this wasn't about Rin, either. For all of Kakashi's projections and curiosity, he knew better than to assume less than hope that this kid was Minato's son. The characteristics were there if just barely at times, but why should he latch onto this belief anyways?

Having been disgraced by baseless accusations of impropriety surrounding Rin's death, Minato had disappeared from their lives.

This kid's birthday was the very same day when everything changed.

Uzushio hadn't closed off its borders to outsiders until five months after when two of their nationals, one dead and one missing, had inspired them to do so.

Once a centuries old alliance quickly turned to ash like a rickety bridge set aflame.

The implication here then was that his Sensei had disappeared to Uzushio, knocked up a local, and came back with her.

And Minato never told him. Perhaps was never going to tell him.

Perhaps, Minato had truly been ashamed of him for letting Rin die.

And this was just what he deserved.

* * *

Obito's grip twisted around the steering wheel.

Naruto sat in the passenger side, forehead pressed to his knees, arms circled around his legs.

"You were telling me you ran into a 'weirdo' earlier?"

Naruto sighed but did not lift his head. "Yeah, some emo twink called me 'dickless'."

Obito snorted then sniffed to subdue his amusement. "Ah. You met  _him_."

Naruto snapped up from his brooding like a sparked flame from a lighter. "Stop with the cliche mysterious replies! You know his name, just fuckin' say it!"

"Sai." Obito made red light right turn and proceeded through the dark, neighborhood backstreets. "There's a reason why he's  _off_."

Naruto glared at him through half-lidded eyes. "Not that I asked, but you gonna tell me?"

"Not anymore." Obito pulled up to his apartment complex and turned in through the gates. The very moment Obito parked the car Naruto kicked him.

* * *

Naruto stood before the towering shelf of books before him like he had a heavy decision to make.

The blood orange sun hovered above the jagged skyline amongst a faint rainbow horizon, from blush rising into orange creme, daffodil into mint, then baby blue into lavender.

The school library itself was awash in deep orange light and red clay shadows.

Naruto sucked in his bottom lip and licked at the tender split along his skin, the tip of his tongue tingling at the metallic flavor.

Sighing through his nose, Naruto shrugged and turned away. He strolled to the end of the shelf and rounded the corner when half his breath was knocked out and a body thudded to the ground before him. Books clattered to the floor in a chorus of whumps and claps.

"Shit, my bad." Naruto stooped down to help her with her books. There was about six of them, four of them thick and two small. One said 'CSS Language for Beginners', another said 'Coding throughout History'. Naruto glanced up and recognized the mousy girl before him, a frizzy head of long dark ash blonde hair and coke-bottle glasses. He handed the books out towards. "Shiho-chan."

She smiled crookedly as she scooped the tomes into her arms and bowed her head repetitiously. She raised herself up and readjusted her books like she were holding a fifteen-pound infant, then she pushed up her glasses. "Uzumaki-kun. You're in the library."

Naruto barked out a laugh and circled his left arm behind his head. "Just another elaborate prank. Kidding. Actually, I gotta get my grades up. My teach thinks I'm not gonna make it, so I gotta prove him wrong."

Shiho's lips wobbled as she sniffed back a laugh. "But wouldn't that make him  _happy_ , if you graduated?"

Naruto's arm fell at his side and the stance of his feet shifted like he'd been caught stealing and had to run. "Oh shit, you're right! Damn, I can't have that!"

Shiho pressed her forehead to the tops of her books, her shoulders trembled with quiet laughter. "You're so backwards. I've heard stories about you from Nara-kun. You're just as funny as he says."

 _Shikamaru thinks I'm funny?_  Naruto rubbed at the back of his head. He used to be enthusiastic about everything back then, but never did he try much to be a class clown. Then again there were times he did anything he could to make his friends smile just so they'd have a better day. Was that 'him' still so strong in Shikamaru's mind?  _Oh well._  "Well, guess I'm dropping out. See ya."

As Naruto strolled past Shiho, she stopped him. "Uzumaki-kun! That's my mother's book!"

 _Eh?_  Naruto glanced down at his right hand. The book was so small he forgot he was holding it. He lifted the title to his eyes.  _Tales of a Gutsy Ninja_. Naruto stomped on the urge to roll his eyes. Considering it more closely, he noted the softness of the cover and the yellowed pages. "Damn, this is an old copy." He turned around and handed it back to her.

"It's an original," Shiho shrugged, smiling gently. Her demeanor perked up like an anxious rabbit. "Have you read any of them?"

"Considered it. But no. See, I met the real thing and he-"

"What do you mean? Oh, his adopted son?! Uzumaki-kun, Jiraiya was inspired by him but the hero was never meant to be  _him_."

Naruto shoved his hands in his pockets and craned his head to the side. His left eye pinched whilst his bottom lip jutted out. "Eh?"

Shiho scratched at her cheek. "If you read it, you'd see that Jiraiya doesn't describe what Musasabi Naruto looks like. It's the same reason game developers go for silent protagonists. He wanted to leave Naruto up to our imaginations, so that we could picture ourselves as the hero," Shiho glanced back at him, intrigued with the well of emotions that were his eyes. At a moment's notice those mercurial blues were wild and alive, and at another they were quiet and heavy. "You have some relation to him, don't you? That's another thing I heard, though considering your name-"

"Yeah…" Naruto's gaze dropped to the green tips of his indoor shoes. "But I don't know how, or in what way." He scuffed his toe into the dark blue carpeting.

"You know, his last few books got pretty dark," She watched his brows knit before his curious gaze bore through her. "For an author's voice to change like that, I always thought that something bad must have been happening in his own life. Maybe it was so bad that he could only talk about it through his stories," Shiho glanced at the copy in her hand and held it out towards him. "This is the first book, so I understand if it's too innocent for your tastes, but… this is what I think: If you ever want to talk to Jiraiya… Read his books."

* * *

**Nanabi: Hello?**

Naruto's heart was like a sledgehammer against his chest, as his palms broke out in a hot sweat.

**Kyūbi: HOLY SHIT YOU'RE BACK!**

**Nanabi: I am?**

Naruto's phone slid halfway out of his grasp, and it felt as though he had been dropped into icy waters, every part of him numbing and buzzing.

**Nibi: Kyūbi, don't you remember? She said she wasn't coming back.**

**Nanabi: Ehh? So these handles are reissued?**

**Nanabi: What's that mean? Am I like the new Seven Tails or something? Lol**

_Wait_. Was this going to happen to him too? Has this already been happening?

No one was the original, someone had preceded them.

But they were the originals to him. To be replaced so suddenly, so randomly made this whole thing feel worthless. He didn't want to befriend a stranger with her name. It was weird; like speaking to an amnesiac.

Naruto exited chat and fell back against Obito's sofa, his arms slack and wrists hanging off the edge of the cushions.  _"Something wondrous awaits me"? Whatever it is, is it so much better than being friends with me?_  Naruto lifted up his phone and thumbed open his PM box. The last mission he ever received had been sitting there for three months and he hadn't even looked at it yet.

**Sender: Admin**

**Header: Mission No. 37**

" **What is something you've always wanted to do? Ignore moral conventions and dig deep. Pretend you could get away with it.**

**Maybe if you're clever enough, you can."**

Naruto rolled his eyes and turned off the screen, then sank against the sofa on his left side like a felled tree.

Obito stepped out of his bedroom, away from his paperwork.

The deflated blonde looked in his direction, blue eyes upturned like rescue puppy in his kennel, sniffing and whining for a new home.

_Knock knock knock_

Naruto jacknifed as Obito answered the front door.

"Hey man, what's the big idea, huh?" A young man with gray hair slicked back from his forehead and impatient purple eyes stood on the landing. The yellow porchlight deepened the shadows of his face and ribs, causing him to resemble a shirtless skeleton in waist wrappings and a black leather hoodie with large, tawny fur trim. "You're behind your quota,"

A stainless steel necklace draped from his neck, the pendant a circle with an inverted triangle. The skeleton glanced past Obito, his eyes settling on Naruto causing the blonde to stiffen like a convict beneath a spotlight. The skeleton grinned, his eyebrows quirked in bemusement. "Hey kid, interested in religion?"

"Hidan, let's talk outside." Obito pushed the visitor away before slipping out into the hall himself.

The door closed.

A one-sided argument slid past the left window, their shoes clopping along the concrete hall until they were gone.

The pounding in Naruto's chest reduced to swift thumps as he unfolded his legs and ran for the door. He slipped out and closed the door with all the silence of an assassin. The late fall air bit his ears and hands. He trained his ears to the man's voice echoing across the night.

"- knows what we might do! Jashin is hungry!"

The two men appeared two floors below. Hidan was walking backwards through the parking lot, gesticulating his own frustration with wide sweeps of his arms. Obito was like a black granite column. A weary one as he stood there pinching the bridge of his nose.

" _Don't_  call it Jashin. It's just a tree."

"Hey! You were the one who supported our views! You provided the scriptures."

"I provided the rambling texts of my forefather as his mind deteriorated on his deathbed.  _You_  people adopted it as your scripture," The air lapsed in silence as the men stared each other down. "Look, I've given you enough, haven't I? I can't do something flashy like I did in my youth."

Hidan marched up to Obito and poked his chest. "Then start a war if you have to."

Obito pushed his hand away. "You got one happening right under your nose." Obito ducked close to Hidan and whispered. The skeleton's face lit up like a sunrise before he pulled away, content with the information given to him.

Hidan turned and walked away, disappearing as the night consumed him.

Obito glanced up, his abyssal gaze piercing through Naruto. The blonde's face flushed cold. His stomach felt like a stopped drain. Any more of this suffocating atmosphere, any more thought given to what he just heard, and he just might overflow and puke.

 

* * *

_The airport was a chorus of idle chatter, robotic announcements, clacking luggage and whirring ventilation. Sunlight glared off the polished metal between escalators as Obito, age eighteen, waited at the bottom, a sign held high above his head._

' _Namikaze' it read._

_Two distinct figures caught in conversation descended the gliding steps, their opposing hair colors resembling common condiments; One more familiar to him than the other._

_His junior high homeroom teacher glanced away from his pregnant partner, the sign catching his eye, and his warm smile chilled and faltered. The woman followed his eyes and her smile brightened._

* * *

_The dark blue sedan rolled to a stop in the middle of afternoon traffic, and Uzumaki Kushina leaned towards the driver's seat, and she patted Obito's shoulder. She was as pleased a pampered young girl._

" _Uchiha-kun, just for this I've decided."_

_Obito glanced up into the rearview mirror, his eyes crinkling beneath the apples of his cheeks as he smiled. "Ma'am?"_

" _Out of all of Minato's students..! You're my favorite."_

_The light turned green. Gratitude swelled inside his chest and it was as bittersweet as a last minute love confession from a crush who was moving halfway across the world, never to be seen again. "Thank you, ma'am."_

_Minato's discomfort was palpable for someone who knew him better than she did, from his stiff shoulders and clasped hands to his illusionary smile and distracted gaze._

_Kushina reclined, slender fingers tracing the curve of her taut, round belly. "And here I was getting all worked up thinking I was going to have to deal with one of his underaged fangirls."_

_Minato turned towards her, frowning as though an infidelity had been aired. "Kushina, I have no such-"_

_Kushina's shoulders bounced with a soft chuff. "Calm down. I know it's not something you can control. When you told me you were a teacher, I always pictured you were the type who was really popular with the female students," Kushina's tracings along her belly slowed as her smile dimmed and turned crooked. "But still, I wonder if you ever had a favorite of your own."_

_A poorly ignored pain knocked on what was left of his heart like an estranged friend pounding on his front door. Obito didn't believe the rumors. He couldn't knowing who had started them. But he needed to believe something, and it was all he had. Because after the landslide, he had been flown back to the city. He had been hospitalized for three months. Had missed classes in exchange for physical rehabilitation. And Rin never visited him. Never spoke to him again. Something happened back there at the forest and no one would tell him what. But it was enough to tie that jump rope around her pretty neck._

_Through the rearview mirror, Obito watched Minato place his hand over hers, grasping to stop her fidgeting. He squinted at her, his thumb rubbed the top of her pale hand and she faced him, meeting his eyes. "I didn't." He cooed beneath his breath as he lifted her hand and touched her knuckles to his lips._

_Obito coughed. "So, how long are you two staying for?"_

" _Oh, just… three days." Kushina said with another bounce of her shoulders, her gaze sliding away from Minato. He rubbed her knuckles and she let him._

" _Well, we'll be returning sometime after Naruto is born."_

_Kushina's hand slipped from his. "We haven't decided on a name yet."_

" _Really?" Obito peered into the rearview, discovering different shades of discontent on both their faces._

_Minato leaned in close to her, hiding his mouth in her hair but his whispered words were clear. "It's a good name."_

" _Not where I come from." Kushina slumps against her seat, and turns her body towards the passenger door. It's at this angle that Obito witnesses an ivory white splotch of scar tissue along her upper left hairline. The gleam from her dark blue eyes has disappeared, overshadowed with doubt._

" _Uzumaki-san, if I may ask: What name do you like for him?"_

_Kushina faced forward and grinned warmly. "I really want to name him after his grandfather. I think it'd be best he look up to a man like him."_

_Minato's face crinkled at her words. "I really don't think he'd like 'Menma' any better than 'Naruto'-"_

" _Oh geez, Minato! No one wants be named after a comic book hero! He'll get picked on!"_

" _Even so, it'll make him stronger, like it made you."_

_Obito's fingers clenched knuckle-white around the steering wheel as they slowed to a stop. He looked up._

_Kushina ripped away from him, diverting her dark glare to the passing world outside, so large and unfamiliar to her. What was she even doing here? Satisfying some whim of his to introduce her to his damn penpal? She was bloated and sore and hundreds of miles away from family. She decided right then and there she would stay in the hotel room. He would have to do a whole lot more buttering up to get her to meet this 'National Treasure' of an author. Like hell her son needed a shady, famous man to look up to._

" _I want to name him after my dad," She said. "No one is more hardworking and dedicated than him."_

" _Those are fine qualities, yes, and naming him differently won't prevent him from having those qualities."_

" _Then you won't mind, right?"_

_Minato's lips pursed, his hands balled up atop of the leather seats. She didn't understand and he had no idea how to get her to understand. He was an outsider in her world and he accepted the things he would have to learn, the things he would have to adjust to. Hell, he would put up with the way her parents talked down to him if it meant he could have this one thing, this ONE itty bitty thing to remind him of his roots and connect their son to them as well. If she got her way with this one thing, he wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to feel like he was his child's father._

_What if Naruto inherited their red hair? What if they just used that against Minato and forced him out of their lives?_

_The things Kushina said sometimes, compounded by her pride and stubbornness, often left Minato with the feeling that she wouldn't mind raising Naruto without him, or that she'd honestly prefer it._

_Obito watched the silent war waged between them, and he knew they had a long way to go before having kids. How long had they even known each other? This whole thing between them reeked of a 'one night stand'. And yet, a pitch black pleasure slithered around Obito's heart and clenched it. The sight of his patient, devoted and generally kind teacher - handsome and decidedly perfect in every other way - was in the same hopeless situation that Obito had been in. Pining after a woman who hadn't made up her mind about him yet. 'How great is this?' He thought._

" _Well, it's too early to think about how he's gonna turn out, right? The only thing you can do is hope for the best." His words settled over them like the gentle comfort of sprinkler mist on a scorching late summer afternoon, and their shoulders lowered, their glares faded into contemplative shame. "I apologize you two, I shouldn't have kept prying," Kushina waved him off with a limp, one-shoulder shrug. "Uzumaki-san, I bet you've never seen this many trees in your life, huh?"_

_Kushina's chest swelled as she let go of the dark mood that had possessed her. "You're right. Actually," Kushina pressed her forehead against the window and looked up. "I'm quite amazed by the balance of nature and urbanization here."_

_"Honestly, it still feels too urban for my tastes. Which is why I'm grateful we have this one landmark. It's my favorite, you see."_

_"What is it?"_

_"The Tokonoha Metropolitan Arboretum."_


	4. The Girl Who Forgot Herself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [minor update: I originally depicted toddler Hinata as half-naked. But that's not scandalous, at all. So I changed that part, because Hitsuna seems like a weirdo for getting worked up over a topless toddler.]

Humming. Not like her mother's when she needed help sleeping, though she did feel sloth-like. It was a distant, surrounding humming like a fan, like air-conditioning.

 

Then there was darkness. Darkness after darkness. Her eyelids were working but there was nothing to see.

 

But she was somewhere, awake and physically somewhere. "M,Mommy?" Her voice surprised her, shrill with a creeping fear as she struggled to raise her arms.

 

"Hinata-chan," A smooth hand clasped her tiny ones, palms warm yet long fingers quite cold. "Baby, I'm here."

 

Hinata attempted to shrug the weight of an unnatural sleep from her shoulders, to blink away the itchiness around her eyes. Darkness unchanged. If her mother found her so quickly, then it couldn't be this dark, right?

 

As if struck upside the head with an ice-packed snowball, her heart hammered, flew up her throat and she began to thrash. "Mommy! Mommy, something's wrong!"

 

"Shh, shh, shh, no, no, you're fine. You're going to be just fine." Her voice cracked just like it did when father was around.

 

"She's absolutely right, Hinata-chan," A man's voice. Unrecognizable. But he spoke calmly, clearly. No trace of authority, just clinical. "You're in the hospital. My name is Ao, I'm your doctor."

 

"Ao-san, everything's gone."

 

His shoes clip-clopped closer. "Only for a short time, I promise. Everything will return once you answer me one simple question."

 

You're holding the world hostage for an answer? Oh, but it was one only she could answer. "'Kay."

 

"Do you have a favorite color?"

 

Kou-san liked to ask her riddles. Only very few times did she get it. This had to be one of those. Adults had their own language, where something simple meant something else, and even then that something else probably meant something else. She knew just what to say, because she liked all the colors and she wanted to see them all again.

 

"White."

 

There was a cough. It was his. A soft, lengthy groan. Her mother's.

 

"Not white, baby."

 

Why not white? Her birthday was always white, with the snow and the overcast sky. The neighborhood cat outside their home was big, fluffy and white. Ice cream, marshmallows, swans and pillows; all white. Her brother showed what white really was. Splitting light through a crystal revealed the truth. White was everything. "I, I dunno." Some riddle this was. Whatever they were getting at, though, at least they wanted her input.

 

"Hinata-chan," Ao began, as if coaxing her through a lesson. "When you play pretend, you believe you're someone else, right?"

 

She nodded and he continued.

 

"You pretend, mayhaps, that your hair is blonde or bright blue. Maybe you also pretend your skin is different. You pretend your life is different too, right?"

 

She nodded. Her head was full of pictures and desires, colors and ideas that sparkled. Pretend was the best way she could communicate her feelings, even if she was just reflecting her ideas back to herself.

 

"She really likes magical girls."

 

"Magical girls, hm. Hinata-chan, which one is your favorite?"

 

Normally when a man asked her that question, she got a new toy the next day. She sucked in a breath and held it still in her chest. She was tired of the gifts of random men. They wouldn't even play with her. They could play the bad guys for all she cared, they usually looked the part.

 

"Her favorite is Tsuki Senshi--"

 

Her chest was on fire. "Mommy, no!"

 

Her mother's grip tightened around her hands. "Hinata-chan?! What's wrong?!"

 

Her face was on fire. The itchiness around her eyes felt heavy and warm, sticking to her skin. Okay then, she was still able to cry somehow. She threw herself face-down, trying to hide from all the people she couldn't see. “I didn't want to tell him!" Familiar arms circled around her balled-up form, pulling her in close to her mother's softness. Yet that softness only felt like empty air.

 

"Blue. Just give her blue ones like Tsuki Senshi."

 

Hinata balled up tighter, burned hotter and cried harder.

 

She just wanted to go back to sleep.

* * *

 

Hyuuga Hitsuna stood inside the makeshift office, biting her nails down to the flesh whilst her chest ached as though it'd been cracked apart by hateful hands.

 

Ao stood opposite of her, thumbs hooked in his pants pockets. "You have another one on the way."

 

Hitsuna nodded.

 

Seated in the north corner at her desk was a twenty year old woman, her impressively long auburn hair flowing down her back like frayed palm leaves and her fringe arranged over her face in such a way that only her left eye was visible. Two long strands crossed over her clavicle, and her full lips shone like rubies. She oozed with refinement and sensuality, it was a wonder what lead her into this line of work. This woman, Terumi Mei... Somehow her stare made Hitsuna feel like an impala with a broken leg.

 

Mei expanded Ao's implications. "It's going to be harder from here on out. A single mother, two little girls, your husband out for your head..."

 

Hitsuna pulled her fingertips from her mouth and grimaced. "What are you getting at?"

 

Mei leaned forward and tilted her head. "What are you going to do when the next one has the same 'problem'?"

 

Hitsuna's eyes dropped to the floor. She'd given up an arm and a leg just now for Hinata, for their safety, their future. To surrender her head certainly wouldn't do. The questions that Hinata would surely ask if her baby sister were to... Lifting her gaze, Hitsuna saw that they both knew full well what she'd have to deal with.

 

"You're already toeing the line here," Ao began. "The approximate age a child's memories begin to contextualize is roughly four point seven. The moment she sees her sibling's eyes, should they resemble his, she'll never be able to forget what's been done to her."

 

But if she acts now, this could all be forgotten, or at least seem like odd, faded dreams.

 

Tears slipped down Hitsuna's cheeks. Her fingernails seemed magnetized to her teeth and soon enough her tongue was tingling. Blood. Oh, there would be so much more of it down the line if she screwed this up. Her words clogged jagged in her throat. "M,My second child... y,you'll help her--"

 

Ao's mouth opened, then shut, as his young boss pushed off from her chair. Back straight, eyes clear as if her life's purpose was centimeters from her grasp. Ao's brows furrowed with question.

 

Mei strode to Hitsuna's side. She stroke the distressed woman's arm, a small smile on her lips. "If you'd like to try... I could raise Hinata-chan. In exchange, that is."

 

The desperately hopeful look Mei received was more than enough.

 

Indeed, it was the best option for them both.

* * *

 

Hitsuna tried not to show, not around Hinata who would be too curious, too excited to forget about becoming a big sister. She stood back as Mei sat at Hinata's bedside, the bandages long removed from her daughter's head. The glow and utter pleasure radiating from Mei's smile pained Hitsuna.

 

Hinata -- with her new eyes, radiant cobalt like Delphinium flowers -- gazed back at Mei while throwing her mother a questioning glance every now and then.

 

"Hi there, Hinata-chan," Mei gleamed. "I'm an old friend of your mommy's. My name is Mei. How are we feeling today?"

 

Hinata shrugged, her tiny white fingers laced together, wringing themselves out. "My face kin'a hurts. When does it go away?"

 

"Give it a day or two. I have something for you," Mei pulled a doll from behind her back and held it up. "Your mom told me that you didn't have this version yet. Here. This is for being such a good patient."

 

Hinata hesitated, glancing between the doll and her mother, twice, three times. "But, uhm... I have so many, even if they're all back home."

 

Mei's contemplative frown came and went. The moment she had found the right shelf at the toy store, her instincts had cried out to her. "Oh, but Hinata-chan..." With that, Mei presented something else she'd been hiding behind her back. "What am I going to do with this one?"

 

Hinata's eyes sparkled. No one ever had a villainess on them, no one ever suspected that she wanted one. How was she supposed to save the day if there was no bad guy to redeem? Hinata tucked her chin to her neck and she began to prod her fingers together. "C,Could we trade?"

 

"You don't want both?"

 

Hinata shook her head. "That wouldn't be fair. She'd already be the only one that's bad on my shelf. I don't want her getting bullied when I'm not looking just because she's bad."

 

Mei pulled away as if her spine was magnetized to her seat, and the corners of lips twitched against the impulse to laugh. She couldn't figure out if this little girl had a simple moral code, a complicated one or a backwards one, but Mei was looking forward to finding out in the years to come.

 

"Alright," Mei said, looking pleased with herself as Hitsuna watched on from afar. "Let's trade."

 

Hitsuna looked away, as if an iron ball had settled in the pit of her gut. She denied her hand the urge to stroke her belly, to soothe and justify the life growing inside her. To justify her own decisions.

 

There was no going back now.

* * *

 

The air was thick, cool and sticky. Hinata watched what the humidity did to her mother's otherwise perfect hair. She giggled noticing the crimps and frizz taking hold of those plum-colored strands, like unfurling tea leaves in hot water.

 

Hinata stretched over Mei's shoulder, making grabby hands for her mother who trailed behind them. Hinata stopped when all she got was a disengaged smile. That ache in the special spot in her chest was twisting again.

 

"Do you miss daddy?"

 

Her mother stiffened. Hinata wasn't particularly surprised, but she had to ask.

 

"Is it Kou-san, then?"

 

Mei craned her head towards the conversation. "Kou-san?" Glancing further back, she caught Hitsuna's crestfallen expression and frowned. Mei looked at Hinata. "Who's Kou-san?"

 

Hinata slapped her hands over her mouth, eyes owlish and cheeks red. She glanced at her mother as if awaiting approval. She didn't mean to speak so loosely. She also didn't expect her mother to go so long with that man around.

 

But she was glad he wasn't here.

 

Hinata lowered her fingers from her lips and summoned her voice, as if extending a rope towards her toe-dragging mother. "It's okay. Mommy, it's okay. Just like this is good, right? Just us two."

 

If Hinata's heart had been the overcast skies above, her mother's barest of genuine smiles was like a sliver of long-missed sunshine.

 

"Here we are." Mei stated as they arrived at the end of a drive leading up to a two-story house, about half the size of what they were used to. Hitsuna's features flattened.

 

On the one hand, her daughter's quality of life would hardly change.

 

But on the other hand, would Mei be able to keep her humble?

 

Hitsuna gave Mei a withering stare as the young woman poked and tickled her daughter's tummy, brandishing promises and sweet nothings as if they had already begun to share the same last name.

 

_I truly wonder._

* * *

 

Hitsuna was very much like the morning fog. Colorless and unmoving.

 

Languishing within the guest room, she gazed into that thick unknown beyond the balcony window, arms curled over her knees.

 

How long has her life been the second hand on a numberless clock face? Tick-tickering away with her breath. Hitsuna cupped her face. She withheld her sigh as her head slid downwards, stopping at the tent of her knees.

 

What was she going to do?

 

Where was she going to go?

 

The faint creak of her door drew her attention outwards. "Yes?"

 

No answer. Classic Hinata.

 

Hitsuna sniffed up a smile before rising like the daisy in winter, and beckoned her daughter to enter.

 

Hinata pushed the door open further, grinning as she approached her mother, and Hitsuna turned to stone.

 

Naked. Her four-year-old child was naked.

 

Hinata stopped dead, took a step back and began prodding her fingers together.

 

Hitsuna threw the comforter from her body, scooped up her daughter, tucked her frightened child in the length of her robe and sprinted out the hallway.

 

"Terumi! What is the meaning of this--?!" Fire shot up Hitsuna's neck and settled between her ears. She averted her gaze from the young woman cooking at the stove in nothing but a blue mesh-bikini.

 

When Mei turned around, she sized up Hitsuna's reaction and shrugged. "You realize it's healthier to dry off with less clothes, right? She wanted you to join us, but you seemed like you didn't want to get out of bed, so we went to the beach without you. Croquettes are almost ready. Feel free to use the bath."

 

Hitsuna stomped away as she carried Hinata on her hip, all the while cursing loose, young mothers beneath her breath. She could smell the crab meat in the air and decided she'd let Hinata reject Mei's cooking at the table.

* * *

 

“You really don’t have to do anything,” Mei approached the table, setting down a tea set with the kettle steaming like a serpentine dragon. “That’s the point, isn’t it? We get her comfortable with her new surroundings. Then off you go onto your new adventure.” Mei then compressed her lips.

 

The look Mei was giving her, it left Hitsuna with the sense that there was criticism beneath that lipstick. No, perhaps not criticism but skepticism. Ever since Hinata uttered the name of another man, Mei tended to look at her rather funnily.

 

“He was our chauffeur.”

 

“Ah,” Mei’s mouth quirked to the side like she just remembered a funny joke. “Then your husband should have entrusted a woman to hold his spot in your lives.”

 

Hitsuna reached for her teacup, her blunt fingertip stroking along the delicate rim. “That wouldn’t have stopped me.” Hitsuna looked up when the air seemed to shift, becoming difficult to intake. She sputtered at the pink creeping across Mei’s face. “I,I didn’t mean like that.”

 

Mei closed her eyes and cleared her throat, allow the blush to leave her body. She mirrored Hitsuna’s pensive gestures with the tapping of her thumb against her cup. “I don’t judge you, Hitsuna-san, I truly don’t. We all have a voice we must obey. But at the end of the your journey, you may have to ask yourself: Were you ultimately kind, or were you ultimately ruthless?”

 

Even before she made her decision to deceive, to flee, Hitsuna had already struggled with these questions, with the way her soul seemed to refract in her cracked vanity mirror. The lump of lead sitting cold in her throat had yet to pass through, but she had learned to talk around it like nothing was wrong. Hitsuna needed to trust herself. Hitsuna needed to maintain her convictions. She promised her children a safe, happier life and she would not go back on that.

 

“What is a mother bear, Terumi-san, but a creature both kind and ruthless?” Hitsuna fixed the young woman with the abyssal stare of a life well-experienced. She was pleased to finally capture the woman’s respect in the form of her hunching shoulders and sobered, solid gaze. “What kind of mother will you be?”

* * *

 

Hinata laid awake, flanked by a lion plushy and rabbit plushy both twice her size. Beams of light from passing cars crawled across her ceiling, and though this sudden vacation has given her plenty room to breathe, she was starting to acknowledge that the ghostly hole in her chest was still there.

 

Because in the end nothing had been changed, nothing had been fixed in their absence, only forgotten.

 

Sometimes her daddy had warm, full moon eyes, and a mouth full of empty promises. Other times his eyes were cold slits of silver, lips set in such a firm line she wondered if they were in fact glued shut.

 

Sometimes she glued her fingers together by mistake, but when she waited, she was able to free her digits from their crusty, white prison.

 

Waiting. Wanting. Wondering.

 

She couldn’t sleep.

 

Her mother would be irritated with her. She rarely showed it, but that didn’t mean she was hiding it, either. It was still there no matter what.

 

Couldn’t sleep.

 

She closed her eyes.

 

Imagined her day at the beach.

 

Two girls liked her sand castle and asked if they play next to her.

 

That made her heart dash and flutter. No one ever approached her before. She didn’t know what to say to them aside from a stunned nod. And that’s all she did until their parents called them away.

 

She nodded throughout their play time.

 

The reality sent her to tears in no time. A wasted opportunity. Her own body imprisoning both her voices. And the distinct feeling that she wasn’t like them anyways.

 

When Mei tried to soothe her, it didn’t work, no, Hinata had felt worse.

 

Because her mother hadn’t been there when she needed her.


	5. Troublemaker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aughhh, I literally didn’t update all last year, did I? Q n Q (Also to DaTunaSamich, your comments are gone now, I'm sorry. I didn't realize, even though AO3 did ask me if I wanted to delete my author's note chapter. Ehehehe derpderp)
> 
> Anyways, I went back and edited the police aspects in the first three chapters:
> 
> \- Office 5 is now Edahanishi-ku, First Investigation Division of the Criminal Affairs Bureau.
> 
> And,
> 
> \- Both Kakashi and Ibiki took the ‘Elite tests’ to gain their promotions. Obito couldn’t pass even the ‘Non-Elite Tests’, so while he worked his way up to Sergeant, he is relied on the least. That is to say, he gets shafted with the ‘chores’, like checking equipment and gear quality, paperwork that’s not even his, etc, etc. (He is chronically late to complete some things because he’s passive-aggressive.)
> 
> Also to clarify, and I didn't know this before myself: Senpai is spelled as is, but it's pronounced 'Sempai'. Another example is Shinbashi Station. The kanji is Shinbashi, but the pronunciation and romanization is Shimbashi. It happens when 'n' precedes P and B, and I think G. It becomes an 'm'. So in dialogue, I will spell it 'sempai', but in prose it's 'senpai'.
> 
> I'm sorry if this chapter is too short. (Also special thanks to my beta bluepencils12 :)

_A war? Is that what you just gave him?_  
  
Obito was coming back. Each step was a solemn drumbeat, one that pounded in time with his rising heart.  
  
There was no use running back inside. He couldn't pretend he hadn't heard everything. He had to hold his head high and received what was coming to him.  
  
_Wait. Obito wouldn't hurt me._  
  
But he thought of it, didn't he?  
  
That alone left him with the strangest sensation, like a branch in his reasoning had grown the wrong way. Naruto scratched at his cheeks. Of course he was one of a billion space rocks; not exceptional, not particularly significant. And he had gravitated into this man's orbit. Whereas with the others, Naruto had nearly burned to nothing, or been flung out, left adrift.  
  
Obito was different. He had to be. He neither pulled nor pushed him away. There was a safe distance between them, one that worked. Naruto really couldn't say that about anyone else.  
  
Obito drew up the stairs, strolling closer, always looking like nothing affected him. That Uchiha brand of coolness on someone who was supposedly uncool like him. He had to practice it more some time.  
  
But why did he do it, though? Giving a shady shitster information like that. Was he being blackmailed? Did he just want the guy to go away? He'll come back. He'll come back and who knows what trouble he'll bring when he does.  
  
There was a stony indifference between them. Naruto compressed his lips as he pulled away from the wall. Obito could rely on him. "Hey, what was--"  
  
"Naruto. I think it's time you went home."  
  
“What?! WHY?!” Shit. Obito was staring at him. Dial that back. “I mean, for how long?”  
  
And still he wanted to slap his mouth. No longer blank though piercing, Obito stared at him askance. As if he wanted to laugh at him.  
  
Naruto wanted to snatch those words out of the air and shove them back down his throat.  
  
"Go home." Obito slipped inside his apartment. The door clicked in place, the lock clicked after for good measure, securing his gravity, his oxygen behind those thin walls.  
  
Naruto palmed his forehead as a desert heat spread to fill his face. Throat swollen tight, he choked on his complaints and pleas. A man does neither. So he would be a man about this.  
  
Naruto bared his teeth, words spilling out in a ghostly hiss. "What the hell did I do wrong?"  
  
The door opened. Naruto's heart shot up his throat, blood pounded in face. A sleek black object arced towards him and punched his chest. He fumbled, keeping his smartphone clasped to his chest. And before he could utter even a dumb 'um', the door closed once again.  
  
Naruto rubbed at the dull spot of pain. In that half-second, he only saw the back of Obito's head. Naruto’s lips pressed into a hard line. He openly glared at the door keeping them separated, and he remembered it wasn't the door's fault.  
  
It was Hidan's.

* * *

  
  
The only time Kakashi's ever met a killer who visited the scene of their own crime was two years ago to the day. He had been standing there at the newly replaced pedestrian pole, gazing down at the fresh flowers surrounding the photograph of a grade school girl. She had braids down her shoulders and a gummy grin.  
  
Ten months.  
  
Not a single soul had approached him.  
  
If anyone had found him suspicious, perhaps none of them had cared.  
  
Eight taut leashes had brought Kakashi towards this man, and ten months of unnecessary suffering had come to an end. DUI-er had confessed freely.  
  
Kakashi knew, at the risk of muddling his morals, that he shouldn't identify too strongly with the convicted.  
  
But as he approached the bleachers of Konoha South's impressive sports field, he could not deny that his empathy bubbled to spill.  
  
The baseball diamond was impeccable. Pure white lines. Smooth, flat earth encircled by a manicured lawn. From flag to grass, all was washed in blue moonlight. That spread of land almost made the school look like a castle. And yet, he couldn't decide what it was to him: Was it sanctuary preserving his better memories? Or was it a morgue of his childhood?  
  
And if he was the only one with this compulsion for sentimentality, for carrying this heavy carcass of regret over his back, wasn't that almost the same as what that man felt? As if he never should have survived at all.  
  
Kakashi paused at the end of the bleachers, fingertips stopping to rest against the icy aluminum beams.  
  
"You must think it's cute to keep me waiting, sempai."  
  
Kakashi smirked beneath his medical mask as he turned to face his longtime friend.  
  
Yamato sat three benches from the top, shoulders drawn in and putting on a valiant effort not to shiver. Autumn was drawing to a close, dragging in promise of icy rain.  
  
"Well, you know, I got to see how serious you are about me."  
  
Yamato gaped, his brain beating back the knee-jerk embarrassment before a terrible realization dawned. His mouth curled as he turned his face aside. "Wording it like that," He nodded to himself. "So you really made those girls wait on you, then."  
  
Kakashi marched up the bleachers and joined his friend's side. "Yup."  
  
Yamato glowered at him. "I hope you're ashamed now."  
  
Kakashi shrugged, his eyes rising to meet the dark, blank sky. "They're all married now."  
  
Yamato's mouth parted, but he gave up on forming his retort. He sulked, then sighed as if blowing it off his shoulders. "Spring is fine. Summer's fine. But couldn't we have met up at an izakaya? You know, a warm izakaya. Fresh heat coming off the coals--"  
  
Kakashi smiled. "You wouldn't have ordered anything."  
  
"I would've ordered you salt-grilled sanman, and myself a beer."  
  
Kakashi's shoulders shook as he chuckled. "You know me so well," He clasped his kohai's shoulder and leaned in with a cheery grin. "How could I possibly need a woman when I have you?"  
  
Yamato did not give into his teasing this time, his featured flattened into a deadpan stare. "Please stop talking that way, sempai. It's too pitiful."  
  
The conversation collapsed beneath a pregnant silence. Yamato tilted a sidelong glance towards his senpai who reclined against the hard aluminum, hands laced over his chest. Yamato wondered what it was he saw out there in the field.  
  
"I guess this is nostalgic for you," Yamato began, earning a glance. "You never made it halfway through gym class. So up here you always were. Studying."  
  
"But was I really studying?" Kakashi elbowed Yamato, his eyes resembling half-moons.  
  
Yamato slouched, sighing again. "That really ruined my image of you, sempai."  
  
"I thought you became even more impressed with me. The fact that I never needed to study--"  
  
"You don't have photographic memory."  
  
"Yuh-huh."  
  
"Don't say 'yuh-huh', sempai!"  
  
A large grin split Kakashi's face. "Is this how you deal with those kids of yours?"  
  
Yamato smacked his face, hand dragging down as he blew a raspberry. "I had an illiterate one come in recently. No, nearly illiterate. And the way he talks; no manners or cleverness at all."  
  
The mirth evaporated from Kakashi as he observed the deepening circles beneath his friend's distinct eyes. That type of occupation had to be trying, Kakashi assumed. In a way, he understood. They both had a sense of duty that they couldn't ignore.  
  
"You know... They're still keeping my seat warm back at the Agency."  
  
"..." Yamato's brows sank over his eyes. "You were..."  
  
"Thinking of quitting the force," Kakashi met Yamato's concerned frown head-on. "It's more of the same. I know you don’t want hear that, but--”  
  
Yamato shrugged and offered a smile small. “You know I’m right there with you. It’s not fair the things that happen, but they do happen. And that’s why we’re needed.”  
  
Just when Kakashi felt the small light in his heart glow a bit brighter, he frowned. “Somehow I feel partly responsible for your workload.”  
  
Yamato turned stern. “That’s because you keep referring them to my facility.”  
  
Kakashi clasped Yamato’s shoulder again, his mock-serious demeanor on full display. “I have so much faith in you.”  
  
“Thanks.” Yamato, to his chagrin, was more annoyed than warmed by his senpai’s words, as he had to wonder if Kakashi’s aloofness was in fact a form of shyness. A shyness to act. A shyness to fail. Even a shyness to get too attached to something he might lose. But Yamato had to have faith in him, too. When it comes to what’s right, his senpai never shrank away.  
  
No matter the betrayal towards his conscience or the compromise of his character, Kakashi would remain an officer of the law.  
  
Because he had those kids to look after.

* * *

  
  
_One hour left._  
  
Lieutenant Gekko Hayate craned his jaw open, exuding a bodily yawn. He craved to be in bed right now, his darling tucked in his arms, not a pocket of this autumn chill between them. But Officer Kuzo had been excused from his shift early, having complained of a cold.  
  
So here Hayate was, finishing his subordinate's rounds.  
  
He shined his flashlight like a methodical pendulum, tree trunks and shrubbery blinking in and out of the blanket of dark.  
  
A distant creak pulled at his ears, and as he neared the source, a flicker of annoyance lit up.  
  
A gray van, scuffed up with black marks along the sides and coated in fine brown water stains. The windshield obscured its occupants, the wipers evidently so old they had spread the dirty water across the glass rather than repelled it. Its license plate differed, as well. It was not the standard red and orange of Hi no Kuni, rather it was light blue with black font of Mizu no Kuni.  
  
He had already told the driver to move along four hours ago. Hayate gripped the radio attached to his chest and spoke into it. "Dispatch."  
  
_"Go ahead."_  
  
"The visitor at the west bank is still here. Approaching."  
  
There was a shadow of movement behind that gritty windshield, and a faint glow of orange. Hayate knocked on the driver's window.  
  
The glass descended.  
  
Smoke that smelled like incense bloomed forth. Hayate cupped his mouth, taking a half step back, he couldn't hold down his coughing bout.  
  
"Ohh, sorry 'bout that, Officer."  
  
Hayate attached a toothy grin to those half-assed words. "Four--" cough "--hours."  
  
"Has it really been that long?" His name was Hoshigaki Kisame. Or so his license stated. Thirty-one years old, one-hundred ninety-five centimeters tall. A Mizu no Kuni natural citizen, supposedly here for work.  
  
Hayate's radio buzzed.  
  
_"Actually, it's been longer than that. I pulled up logs from both your division and Traffic; description of a man with sharpened teeth and tribal tattoos beneath his eyes. The first officer to approach him dates back to nine days ago, at 3:37 PM."_  
  
When Hayate refocused on Kisame, he was greeted by a bewildered expression. Hayate was about to remove that look from his feral face right now.  
  
"Procrastinating much?"  
  
"Hah?"  
  
Hayate gripped the roof and leaned close. "You had ten days to register your vehicle. It's a twenty hour drive from the border in the southern peninsula. You said so yourself," It was unprofessional to smile, so Hayate did not, but seeing this larger man squirm sure tugged at his lips. Hayate released the roof, and pulled out a pad of tickets. He scribbled in the late fee and presented it. Kisame sagged as he accepted the paper, then fixed Hayate with a vile glare. "It only gets worse from here for y--" His radio buzzed again.  
  
_"48-A-5, Edahanishi, four-one-six at the Kita-Senju Station--" That was an eight minute walk north of here. “RP describes assailant as a man in his twenties with light gray hair, estimated one-seventy-five centimeters tall, wearing a black leather jacket-- waving around a handgun. No shots fired.”_  
  
A cold weight dropped in his stomach.  
  
_"I'll send cover over there now."_  
  
"Got someone in your ear?" Kisame said.  
  
 He gripped the radio. "Copy that," Hayate narrowed his eyes at Kisame. "You better not be here when I get back."  
  
And with that, Hayate was gone.

* * *

  
  
She awoke with a start. More than a start. A sledgehammer of panic straight to her chest.  
  
Sakura flung upright in her chair, the scattered pieces of her surroundings tumbling back into place.  
  
She had fallen asleep in the school library.  
  
Sakura folded over the table, her palms smothering her face as she drew a deep breath and keened. A high, strung-out sound that lasted over a minute.  
  
She gasped, sinking against her chair. She craned her head back and winced. Her eyelids drifted shut.  
  
That pamphlet that she kept tucked in her notebook was a constant reminder. Somedays the sight of it cheered her on like Lee would when she challenged Ino to a dance-off. But other times the pamphlet seemed to pulse with an omen. Even now, she could feel it somehow.  
  
She was dying.  
  
Absolutely dying.  
  
Of boredom.  
  
She was good at studying. Memory Palace? Got it. Citations? She had those tabbed, and those tabs had tabs. Historical Eras were color coordinated by highlighter, and so was her understanding of the human body. In fact, one week spent studying with Sasuke at his cram school left her dumber than she felt in a long time, so she purchased a tome on Organic Chemistry and her brain practically detonated after the third chapter. But she told herself she could understand it. No matter how many times she had to reread it, dissect it, simplify it. She **would** understand it.  
  
A class like that wouldn't be accessible for a couple more years anyways, but maybe by then she'd actually get it.  
  
A sigh bubbled past her lips. "So tired..."  
  
Tired of thinking. Of memorizing. Of correlating. Even proving herself was tiresome. Maybe not so much 'proving herself'. It was more like... she was fighting to keep her place at Sasuke's side. And yet she wanted a break. That wasn't anything new. That one night when it was just the three of them; Because of Naruto, she had developed a taste for carelessness. It was a surprise Sasuke could abandon the smallest of indulgences, but that part of him she admired.  
  
Because that part of him often highlighted her shame.  
  
The things that she wasn't. What she wanted to be. What she failed to be and only managed to fake instead.  
  
Faking was easy.  
  
Getting up, she gathered her things and slipped them into her schoolbag, exiting the library.  
  
She wasn’t going home again, anyways. Her mother was going to have to get used to it. Or start apologizing.  
  
As Sakura neared the bottom floor she halted in the stairwell, her right foot hovering over landing.  
  
Her footsteps weren’t echoing.  
  
These footfalls were too heavy. And they were drawing closer.  
  
She froze and strained to hear.  
  
There was a chuckle. Then a man's voice.  
  
"Was that a ghost?"  
  
Sakura’s chest tightened. _They heard me?_  
  
"Ah. I should have known this would happen." Replied the other man, sounding particularly amused.  
  
"Hey--" A jolt of fear shot up Sakura’s spine. "We know you're there," His voice quieted as he spoke to his companion. "Say, what do you think it takes to exorcise a manifestation of this level?"  
  
"Mmm, normally you got to resolve any regrets they may have."  
  
A sigh. "I regret not getting Jiraiya-sensei to sign my copy of _Icha Icha_."  
  
"That's... I have no words for that, actually."  
  
Sakura crouched down, biting her lip as her mind zipped and twisted about. They knew she was there. They weren’t advancing. They didn’t sound dangerous, either.  
  
But just in case, she dug out a pre-sharpened pencil from her schoolbag, and held it between her and her notebooks.  
  
She unhinged her legs and descended fully down. When she reached the bottom, she might’ve flinched, she wasn’t sure.  
  
They definitely weren’t any of the teachers she’d seen around here.  
  
"Yo." Greeted the silver-haired man. He had a lazy look to his eyes, half of his face obscured beneath a white medical mask. His eyes dipped down, before meeting hers again. "Lemme guess: The school heartthrob said he'd meet you after school but stood you up. Is that correct?"  
  
Sakura clutched her notebook tighter, lest they all find it somehow halfway down the hallway.  
  
"Really, sempai?" The stuffed-shirt with the trenchant almond eyes winced. He then placed his hand vertically front of his nose, and offered a beaten smile. “I sincerely apologize. This one never learns,” If Kakashi weren’t his senpai, he would have forced him to bow.  “I’m Iburi Yamato, by the way. We used to be students here, and we were feeling nostalgic so… That’s why we’re here.”  
  
“At night?”  
  
“Yeah, at night?” Kakashi was twisting his pinky inside his ear, and Yamato’s voice rushed out of him like a blusterous gust.  
  
“This was your idea!”  
  
“What? No way. I said we should go to an izakaya.” Kakashi stopped twisting his ear as he twisted at the waist to stare at his friend, who looked like he was about to turn heel and walk off. Kakashi then wondered if Yamato could see his shit-eating grin beneath the medical mask.  
  
Swallowing his words, Yamato visibly blocked out his senpai and redirected all his attention onto the visibly guarded girl before them. “Believe it or not, Miss, this one is an Assistant Inspector,” Her eyes widened and he wanted to laugh. “As for myself, I work with children. So I’d appreciate it if you lowered whatever you’re hiding behind your notebook.”  
  
Kakashi’s eyes snapped open.  
  
And they ended up escorting her home.

* * *

  
  
“I knew she had that.” Kakashi said as he drove his car.  
  
“Yuh-huh. So,” Yamato turned halfway towards Sakura who sat in the middle backseat. “You're going to Senjuzu Academy? I saw the pamphlet when I picked up your notebook."  
  
Kakashi glanced into the rearview mirror to find her wincing at her phone. For a second she clutched it, strong enough that if it could break, she wouldn't even regret it.  
  
Her thumbs then hammered away. "Yeah, that's right. Excuse me," She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she put her phone to her ear. She then walled herself off behind private conversation, her voice worn and plaintive. _"Hey. Can I come over? No, I--"_  
  
Yamato settled back into his seat, fingers laced in his lap. _Escorted home only to sneak out, I see._ But it wasn't any of his business. If he recalled, Senjuzu Academy had student housing. Whatever it was she chose to evade tonight, she wouldn't have to worry about it for much longer.  
  
Tapping his thumb, Yamato caught himself wandering down a paranoid line of thinking. So he stopped.  
  
Not every child he came across was at risk. And not every child, unaccompanied or sneaking about, woke up in the woods in a bloodied shirt. No, that remained solely his own experience.  
  
A siren sprang from the silence. It tapped at him for his attention. Kakashi looked too. The patrol car screamed past them in a streak of red, white and black, abandoning them at the red light.  
  
"He was supposed to go there." Kakashi said, so low Yamato almost missed it.  
  
Seconds fell like raindrops, his realization formed like a puddle. "You sound like you wish he did."  
  
The light turned green.  
  
"He would have if he hadn’t met Shisui."  
  
Yamato tapped his thumb. "Do you know what he's up to now?"  
  
Kakashi said nothing. Perhaps he knew and disliked the reality enough he didn't want to voice it. Or maybe he had no clue at all. Maybe he preferred clutching at such unresolved things as if an open ending was better than a proper one.  
  
His senpai still cared.  
  
"Remember; He was thirteen when he said that. Fugaku is still alive. Not every bitter teen goes through with-- Nevermind." Touchy subject. His senpai's grip on the steering wheel did not let up. Frowning, Yamato pursued. "I just want you to keep that in perspective. That's all."  
  
Minutes passed when Kakashi replied, so low Yamato nearly missed it. “Says the guy who gets worried over a pencil.”  
  
Yamato leaned against the passenger door, placing his jaw in his left palm when red caught his eye. It was like a haze. Just up ahead, down that left residential road sandwiched between two towering condominiums. The red flickered. And as they passed, Kakashi slowed.  
  
Five patrol cars bathed in crimson forewarning lined that street. Dozens of officers stood at either end.  
  
Two more sirens. Screaming forth. They sped ahead, off to who knows where.  
  
A bright beam slid over them, accompanied by the buzzy, sputtering roar of a helicopter.  
  
They were searching for someone.  
  
Anxiety built around their chest cavities like half-ton weights, compressing, constricting, forcing them to be aware of their breathing.  
  
The fifteenth anniversary loomed in the distance. But when you're young, when you live through that, it worms its way in, hardwiring you to remember. To always remember.  
  
The manhunt that followed, all those mornings and evenings to and from school, every street corner manned, the LEO back then visibly armed, certainly made it harder to forget.  
  
Kakashi pulled over to the side. Without taking his eyes off the scene, he reached for his phone, the screen lighting at the press of his thumb. He looked then. Found nothing. And put the screen to sleep. "Thought there'd be a government alert."  
  
"I didn't get one." Sakura breathed, as if voluntarily existing would put her in the line of fire. Both men turned towards her, taking stock of her wan face and wide eyes. The generation who didn't live through it were not let off so easily, for that one day a year, new stations and their clip reels were like water to a sprouting seed of fear.  
  
It may happen again. It may happen again. It may happen again. That's what they wanted to get across.  
  
And that's what they didn't want her to experience.  
  
"It's probably nothing," Kakashi offered, earning a dubious glance from Yamato. "It could be a drill." Kakashi met Yamato's stare, and nearly shied from the hard look. 'Just water it some more why don't ya' it said. "You should get her home. I'll see what's going on."  
  
"Yeah." Yamato freed himself from the seatbelt and exited the car. Once he helped Sakura out of the backseat, he took one last look at the car before it rolled closer to the cordon. Yamato turned towards the concerned girl. "C'mon," They began to walk. "You should probably call back your friend, let them know you changed your mind."  
  
Numbly, she nodded, clutching her things to her chest.  
  
She was suddenly more scared of not being scolded anymore.

* * *

  
  
A girl nine months Sakura's junior was nearing her final semester as well. But unlike Sakura, she had already begun the Private School life.  
  
Her glossy, blue-black hair billowed about her shoulders as she jogged through the shadows of the premises. Terumi Hinata wasn't alone, dragging her classmate along, urging her to keep pace. Which was funny, because Suisen was a beanpole of a tomboy who had a much longer stride than she did.  
  
They weren't supposed to do this. To begin with, Hinata wasn't supposed to do this last night, or the night before that, but here they were -- breaking curfew.  
  
They arrived at a greenhouse attached to the northern face of the Sciences building. This was their Botany classroom.  
  
Resting her hand against the glass door, she stole a look over her shoulder, and Suisen stole a look too, before they pushed on through.  
  
"Where did you see it?" Said Suisen as they scanned over the rows of suspended potted herbs and flowers. She had pointed brown eyes, and cropped blonde hair that she wore parted from the center. She was the spitting image of her older sister, their dorm mother, Suiren.  
  
Creeping vines carpeted the brick from floor to ceiling, their star-shaped purple blooms entrancing in the darkness. There in the center was the door that lead into the Sciences building, but right now, as Hinata lead them to stand in front of it -- It looked like nothing more than a void.  
  
Hinata lowered to the ground and crossed her legs, eyes firmly fixed on the door. Suisen joined her. Because Hinata had never let go of her hand.  
  
Suisen had promised to stay up with her. For as long as it took. But she doubted they would see anything tonight. She cocked her head to the side, an idea suggesting itself. "You sure you weren't doing something that would _attract attention_? Not that I'd judge you. There's so much stamen in here, I can hardly resist them myself." She turned her head. Nothing. Hinata had always been a rather wintry person, all sullen and quiet. Suisen had no idea what it took to break those clouds of hers. Suisen gazed back at the fragile, purple stars before squeezing Hinata's hand back. "If you just wanted someone to spend time with you, you could've said so."


End file.
